Fort Richmond boundary dispute is finally settled
THE bitter boundary dispute at Fort Richmond has been settled – and the Allez family has finally won their decade-long battle to secure clear title to their home.
The legal divide between the fort and the family’s home, Maison de la Guerre, a former German bunker, has been redrawn along the exact boundary lines which States officials repeatedly accepted for years before the States suddenly included a portion of the bunker in the £1m. sale of the fort five years ago.
The new deal also included the Allez family selling a piece of undeveloped land to Julian Mountain, who lives at the fort and is a director of the company which owns it and which had been trying to evict the family from their home, as well as settling access rights to various properties at the headland at Perelle.
The Allez family paid £10,000 and Mr Mountain paid £1, according to conveyances finalised in court a few days ago.
Mark and Karen Allez, who live at Maison de la Guerre, which is owned by Mark’s 83-year-old father, George, told the Guernsey Press yesterday that the family was overwhelmed with relief and joy after fighting for about 10 years to win back land they had believed they owned since at least as far back as the Second World War.
‘For years we’ve had to fight to keep our home after the States sold part of it, so you can
imagine how we feel to have completed this deal, although it’s hard to put into words what this means to us,’ they said.
‘After the conveyance was finalised in court, we got together as a family, and there were certainly a few tears of happiness. We’ve had years of worry, even despair at times, and we’re still celebrating that we don’t need to feel that way any longer.
‘This is life changing for us. Our lives have been consumed by this fight for our home and suddenly we’ve won the fight and we can think about other things again.’
Mr Mountain did not respond to an invitation to comment.
It is understood that lawyers are now working to withdraw competing cases previously lodged with the court in which Mr Mountain was trying to force the Allez family out of their home and they were trying to prevent him accessing the fort over land they claimed to own. But the Allez family and Deputy Andrew Taylor, who has been supporting them in recent months, look set to continue pursuing the States for selling part of Maison de la Guerre years after accepting that the rightful boundary gave the family full ownership of their bunker home.
The Policy & Resources Committee has consistently defended the States’ actions and rebuffed appeals to intervene in what it insisted had become a private boundary dispute.
