A PENSIONER who went to war with his neighbour over where he left his bins has lost his wife to cancer and ended up bankrupt with a £1million bill.
Geoff Carter, 77, fell out with farmer neighbour Trevor Goldsworthy over rubbish left out for weekly bin collections opposite his drive which he says blocked access and attracted flies.
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Six years on from the initial dispute he has been cleared out of all his savings and assets and his wife Corinne, 69, tragically lost her battle with cancer three months ago leaving him a penniless widower.
He has been forced to put their dream retirement home up for sale and is renting a house while he prepares to declare bankruptcy.
Devastated Geoff said: “Whatever happens to me, whether I end up in a hole, I have to make this right for my wife.
“I could’ve done so much with her in her final year but all we did was this fight.
Read more on neighbour rows
“It’s not losing the house that’s upset me, it’s losing my wife.
“The other side has driven this all the way. They told the judge they had nowhere else to put the garbage but in reality they had already found another place to move it.”
He added: “When I tell people the fight has cost me £1million they look at me like I’m nuts.
“The costs have mushroomed out of all proportions.
“It’s almost a million at the moment but costs keep wracking up and it won’t be long before we cross that threshold.
“It’s such an awful mess and all this over some garbage from a load of workers who pick cauliflowers.”
The Carters swapped their Buckhurst Hill, Essex, home for a cottage in rural west Cornwall in 2018 after falling in love with the area while on holiday.
But within weeks of buying the property they had fallen out with farmer Mr Goldsworthy over where he left rubbish for weekly bin collections.
The Carters claimed the rubbish – left across the road from their house – stopped them from accessing their drive and attracted flies.
After a court initially ruled against him he appealed which was also unsuccessful before taking the fight to the High Court which also rejected his claim.
Geoff has run up £420,000 in legal fees to his own solicitors, using equity release on his home and the sale of a foreign property to cover the costs.
Following the court’s ruling against him, he will also now be liable for a legal bill of over £400,000 from the other side.
In addition, he has run up a six-figure sum from other fees including surveys, expert reports and renting another property to avoid homelessness.
The home was once valued at £450,000 but auctioneers told him the best sale price he would achieve is between £250,000 and £280,000.
He claims initial legal advice was that the court case would cost between £60,000 and £80,000 and if he lost it would be doubled.
He said: “When the judge heard what it had actually cost us he said the figures were horrific.
“I am going to have to go bankrupt, it’s the only way I’m going to get rid of this.”
He previously told The Sun: “If we hadn’t put so much into this home we would have sold up long ago and moved on but we were just trapped by it and the further the case went on the harder it was to back out as we would have been liable for all their costs anyway.”
“I’m getting on for 80, my wife’s getting on for 70, we’ve had a house since 1973 and now we’re totally f****. We can’t start working again, we’re too old now. We have nothing but our state pensions”.
Geoff says efforts to sell his home are hampered as he has to tell prospective buyers a court ruled they don’t have a right of access.
An order imposed by the court also means he can’t sell without Mr Goldsworthy’s permission
Adding to the misery of the situation, Geoff’s wife Corinne, 69, died in August after losing her battle with cancer.
As part of the row between the neighbours, Mr Goldsworthy’s son Simon was seen on CCTV using a telehandler to pick up and move Mr Carter’s Skoda Fabia from outside his home.
Mr Carter sought compensation through the courts for alleged damage to the car but that was also rejected.
Mr Goldsworthy previously confirmed to The Sun the case was over and the courts had found in his favour but declined to comment on the outcome.
The Top Five Reasons Neighbours Squabble
One study by Compare the Market revealed the top reason British neighbour’s argue
- Broken fences – top of the board was broken fences and whose responsibility it was to fix it
- Parking: one of the leading drivers of neighbour disputes, with 54.1 per cent of people having issues with people parking in front of their house, parking bay or driveway
- Trees – complaints about a neighbour’s tree cracking your garden path was also common with nearly half of participants finding it frustrating
- Bin wars – outdoor bin etiquette continues to ignite the most furious debates between neighbours
- Nosy Neighbours – some people have their eyes and ears at the ready to have a peek causing problems for others
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