Hi and thanks so much to everyone who's responded so far.
Penpal: Believe it or not, they are attempting to claim Adverse Possession with chickens! We can't deny their chickens might have wandered onto our land in the nineties (after the fence degraded) but if that constitutes Adverse Possession, we'd better prevent the other neighbours’ cat from frequenting our garden with some urgency!!
DobieLover: No, it's not a trial case involving chickens. It's a boundary dispute where the other party are using their chickens to claim the standard garden fence that separated the properties from the late sixties to the nineties wasn't a boundary fence at all.
They claim the hedge behind it was the boundary and their father installed the fence in front of it as a 'stock fence' erected to contain his chickens.
It's a total lie, of course. They've lied hundreds of times and contradict their written statements all the time. They get to make up all sorts of stories, but we have to disprove every single one of them with hard evidence for the court.
Attached is said 'stock fence': the wood panel fence behind the telegraph pole in the image. It doesn't look like a stock fence, it looks like a standard garden fence because that's exactly what it is. What we need for the court is an expert opinion on whether this could be a 'stock fence' and its efficacy at containing chickens.
KyCoop: Full-grown chickens. Apparently bantams, but I wouldn't know. They aren't great photos but I've attached them in the hope they'll help you.
As to the type of expert, our solicitor wrote: 'I would think that some info from a poultry breeders club would be enough. It would not warrant an expert.' So when I say "expert", I mean someone who's been raising chickens for a very long time with lots of experience. It doesn't have to be a professor, just someone who can state what qualifies them to express their opinion for a judge. And don't worry ... any volunteer won't be called as a witness or anything. Just a written statement will do.
Before anyone says, why would anyone go to court over a metre (yes, the strip of land is only a metre wide)? Yes, we're aware of the madness of boundary disputes but this isn't a metre of land at the bottom of our garden. They want the last metre of land between our properties, right up to the windows of our house. They demand we brick up our fifty-year-old windows and seal off all access to our own property (as in we couldn't unblock our drains, clear our gutters, paint our walls, or even clean those windows). And they demand the removal of two large and expensive structures that sit on the land: a carport and a gazebo. We can't not fight this, sadly.
Any help you can give would be SO appreciated. Thus far, this has been a six-year nightmare.
