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Thou shalt not trespass

13 March 2015 / Stephen Boyd
Issue: 7644 / Categories: Features , Property
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Stephen Boyd tells a cautionary tale

Mr Dawoodi owns a house (Blackacre) in Wood Green. It is his main UK residence, but he travels extensively and has homes in other countries. He resides at the property at least once a month, usually for about a week. Blackacre encompasses at its southern extremity part of a narrow path (the path), some 37 inches wide, which extends east from the road. Such paths are a fairly typical feature in North and South London developments built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Their purpose was to permit deliveries to the rear of the adjacent residential properties, primarily of coal.

By the time Dawoodi acquired Blackacre, the path was no longer in use and had been blocked off at the road end by the previous owner, who explained that it had been used as an access route by burglars. Dawoodi therefore took the opportunity to build a substantial shed which not only went up to the brick wall at the end of his garden, which

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