A football club president who built a 24ft 'man cave' is embroiled in a £100,000 court dispute with a neighbour who calls it an 'eyesore' and wants it demolished.
Justin Salmon upset neighbour Andrianna Neophytou after erecting what he has described as a 'den' – featuring a TV, bar, plastered walls, carpeting, furniture and an electric doorbell – at the bottom of his garden in south London in 2018.
The so-called 'garden room' provided Mr Salmon and wife Karen with extra living space during the Covid-19 lockdowns but he was forced to alter it after his neighbour complained, a court in London has been told.
Mrs Neophytou is the freeholder of the Salmons' ground-level maisonette as well as their upstairs neighbour in Coulsdon, south of Croydon.
She had previously secured a tribunal ruling that the sprawling 'man cave' was in breach of their lease and permission that was given for a pergola and a simple toolshed in the garden.
But she is now suing him in court in a bid to have the structures torn down completely, arguing that work he did to comply with his lease did not go far enough.
Mrs Neophytou says he merely converted the 'cave' into an open-sided outdoor bar on the same footprint, swapping a sign on it saying 'Man Cave' for one reading 'Shed for Domestic Purposes'.
In a case lawyers expect will run up legal bills worth more than £100,000, Mrs Neophytou is demanding Mr and Mrs Salmon demolish the structures in their garden.
Football club president Justin Salmon and his wife Karen are pictured outside Mayors and City County Court in London after a hearing in a dispute over a 24ft 'man cave' he built
The couple's neighbour Andrianna Neophytou, also seen leaving the court, has branded the structure in Coulsdon, Surrey, an 'eyesore' and is asking a judge to order it be demolished
The couple deny being in breach of the lease, saying that – despite including a bar – the structures now amount to no more than a normal garden shed and pergola.
Sitting at Mayors and City County Court, Judge Nicholas Parfitt was told Mr Salmon lives in a maisonette with his wife, with Mrs Neophytou above the Salmons and her garden behind theirs.
Mr Salmon is president and senior secretary at non-league Sutton Common Rovers, having previously played for and coached the club that was founded by his father Alan Salmon in 1978.
Mrs Neophytou was approached by Mr Salmon for permission to build a pergola at the bottom of the garden in 2017 and allowed him to do so.
Once it was built, Mr Salmon then added a shed alongside, before gradually developing the structures until they comprised a roofed garden room.
This featured UPVC windows and doors, plastered walls, carpeted floors, furniture, and signs saying 'Man Cave' and 'The Den'.
In the latest court hearing, Mrs Neophytou told the judge how the neighbours fell out badly in 2020, prompting her to bring First-tier Tribunal proceedings.
She argued that the 'eyesore' structures were in breach of the Salmons' lease, saying from the witness box: 'When I looked out the back, I had that great big room and marquees and everything else.
The so-called 'den' featuring a TV, bar, plastered walls, carpeting, furniture and an electric doorbell was first erected at the bottom of the Salmons' garden in Surrey in 2018
Once it was built, Mr Salmon then added a shed alongside, before gradually developing the structures until they comprised a roofed garden room
'There was nothing pleasurable about looking out of my windows and that did upset me.'
After the earlier tribunal finding that the structures did breach the lease, Mr Salmon said he would do work on the 'den' to make it comply – going on to turn it into an open garden bar.
But Mrs Neophytou says what was done was not enough, telling Judge Parfitt: 'It doesn't look like a pergola or a shed now. It's all one long structure. It's an eyesore.'
Her barrister Dilan Deeljur said a clause of the Salmons' lease prohibits them from having any additional building on the land without written permission, except a shed for domestic purposes.
He told the judge: 'The claimant accepts that she agreed in 2017 to a basic open wooden pergola.
'She did not agree to a solid roofed, enclosed, extended, fence-supported or garden-room structure. Nor did she grant any written licence. That distinction matters.'
He accused the Salmons of only making 'piecemeal' changes without removing the garden room structures.
For the Salmons, barrister James Culverwell said whatever name is given, the building containing the bar at the bottom of the Salmons' garden was now a 'pergola-type' structure and therefore within the terms of the agreement.
As to the shed alongside it, he added: 'There is no legal definition of "shed", nor any definition in the lease, save that it must be for domestic purposes.
'"Shed" is an ordinary, common-sense word meaning "a small building that is used for storing things such as garden tools". This precisely describes the shed which is in the defendants' garden.'
Giving evidence himself, Mr Salmon said he had been given the 'man cave' sign as a birthday present and insisted that he had rolled back his garden development so that what remains complies with the lease and the agreement for a pergola.
He told the judge: 'It's now a shed for domestic purposes and the pergola is back as what was agreed with the claimant.'
The neighbours are also in dispute over a locked porch which Mrs Neophytou had built over steps leading up to her door, with the Salmons claiming they have a right to access the steps themselves.
The judge reserved his ruling on the case until a later date.