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The field in question is reported to be a little over two acres. Mr Tierney told the Post he was unaware of the potential adverse possession claim until Mrs Thomas’ affairs had been settled as he’d given the family time to grieve.
“She was a good woman, and I didn’t want to force her family to rush their way through sorting her belongings,” Mr Tierney told us when we reached out for a comment on the matter yesterday afternoon. “They’d just lost the matriarch of their family. They needed to grieve.”
Ha!
What a fucking snake.
If only he really felt that way.
“It was only after we did the end-of-tenancy handover that her granddaughter made me aware of the situation regarding the field behind the house. She had copies of all the legal documents, and she’d discovered all the receipts in her grandmother’s files. I contacted the gardener to ask him if he’d also maintained the land, and he was able to confirm to me in writing that he had.”
This led Mr Tierney to seek legal advice about an adverse possession claim. He argues that Mrs Thomas’ maintenance of the land past the expiry of the contract means she was in possession of the land for over ten years, therefore she had a claim to it prior to selling the property—a claim that ultimately passed to him on completion of the purchase.
The construction giant thinks she didn’t know about it.
“She might not have been aware of the laws surrounding adverse possession,” he told us. “Many people aren’t, but it’s my job to know. It’s always best to settle these things amicably, which was why I went to visit Mr Swann to see if we could discuss it between us. When it became clear that a conclusion could not be reached, I informed him I would be seeking legal advice to make an official claim for the land, and he became aggressive. His wife called the police to report me for trespassing, and regrettably, Mr Swann and I were involved in an altercation outside their house.”
When asked if he would be pursuing his adverse possession claim, Mr Tierney confirmed that would be the case, but that he would not elaborate further.
We reached out to Swann Farm for comment. Mr Swann refused to discuss the incident with Mr Tierney but did answer our question about the adverse claim. When we questioned if he believed Mr Tierney had a chance of winning, he said, “Absolutely not. For an adverse possession claim to be made, the claimant must be using the land without the express permission of the owner. Given that we rented it to Antonia and never explicitly asked her to vacate it after the contract ended, she was using it with our knowledge and permission. Mr Tierney doesn’t have a leg to stand on.”
Adverse possession claims are notoriously difficult to win, and this is one case we’ll be keeping an eye on.
Interesting.
I didn’t know a thing about adverse possession, but it was obviously a hot topic for the two of them.
Was it something Michael Swann would kill over, though? He seemed to be pretty sure he’d win any case, and a quick Google search did seem to back up his position that permission was key.
It seemed like a bit of a ridiculous motive, in all honesty. In my mind, Guy’s was far clearer cut, since Declan was essentially responsible for his sister’s death.
An eye for an eye and all that.
But Michael Swann? Over a couple of acres? Eh… Sure, they’d had analtercation, as Declan had put it, but things like that escalated quickly. It had probably been a heated discussion, and it wasn’t like he was the kind of man to back down when he was told no.
I could attest to that first-hand.
It wasn’t hard to imagine a scenario in which Michael had told him, “No,” and Declan had pushed and pushed until Michael’s patience had snapped.
It didn’t make it right, of course not, but it was understandable.
And that was the problem with people like Declan Tierney. He was the issue—the one who pushed and pushed and pushed, nagging and bothering you until you either gave in or you snapped and did something to make him the victim.
I hated people like that.
I was gladder than I should have been that I didn’t have to worry about him anymore.
Either way, that was two solid suspects, even if I did think Michael Swann’s position was a little weak. Then again, their altercation had only occurred a week ago, and if Tierney had seen him and pissed him off after he’d left the pub last night…
It was possible.
I wasn’t going to write him off.
Alan Sumpter was next on my list. The business partner.
He was the easiest one to find information about, unsurprisingly. His name was connected with Tierney Construction articles all over the web, and there was a large amount of information about him and his life thanks to gushing PR articles and write-ups about the two men who owned the company.
Alan Sumpter was one of three children born to Charles and Rebecca Sumpter in Glasgow, Scotland, but was raised in Great Yarmouth from the age of five. His younger brother died of leukaemia when Alan was fifteen, and the way Alan told it, the financial hardships the family fell on after his death made him determined to be successful so his parents would never struggle again.
