A couple accused of deliberately building their extension two inches into their neighbours' garden to "annoy" them are facing a six-figure legal bill.

Shabaz Ashraf, 45, and his wife Shakira, 40, were told by a judge to tear apart the extension at their £700,000 home in Redbridge, London.

The couple estimate they spent £80,000 ripping down a 1970s extension at the back of their house and replacing it with a modern one - only to have the couple next door - former friends Avtar Dhinjan and wife Balvinder - complain that it was over the boundary between their properties.

Mr and Mrs Dhinjan, backed by their son Gurpreet, said the new extension strayed 68mm or 2.68 inches on to their land with an overhang at roof level 98mm or 3.86 inches the wrong side of the line.

Mr Dhinjan, a former Ford car plant worker, claimed his neighbours "intended to annoy" him and his family by building over the boundary between their homes in 2019.

While admitting the "encroachment" over their border was very small, the Dhinjans complained their neighbours' extension was making their own house damp and "mouldy" because it was so close to their wall it left no room for air circulation.

They sued at Central London County Court, demanding an injunction forcing the Ashrafs to demolish the encroaching wall.

Now Judge Richard Roberts has granted them victory and ordered them to knock down the offending wall and move it back.

Mr and Mrs Ashraf had defended the case, saying they had built the new extension on the footprint of the 1970s one and that any encroachment must have already been going on for over 40 years, giving them squatters' rights.

But Rachel Coyle, for the Dhinjans, told the judge that the 2019 rebuild went beyond the footprint of the old extension and as a result was "flush" against the outer wall of their house.

"There was an encroachment which, while de minims in valuation terms, causes significant injury to the land belonging to the claimants," argued their barrister.

Giving his ruling, the judge said: "One of the sad features of the case is that before the parties began building new extensions to the rear of their property, they lived in harmony and were on good terms.

"The defendants say they built the wall in exactly the same position as the previous wall, which was in position for 41 years. I find that that is, to the defendants’ knowledge, wholly untrue.

"The joint expert surveyor concluded in his report there was an encroachment of 68mm. The wall erected by the defendants is encroaching on the claimants’ land."

Couple warned about wall when they started

The judge found that, by April 2019, Mr and Mrs Ashraf “were on notice that they would be encroaching and that there would be a trespass,” but had carried on with their project regardless.

He found that Mrs Ashraf had said to her neighbours during a row over the issue: “If you think we have come over, then go to court.”

He added: “This was exactly what was said by them (the defendants) on 29 April: ‘If you think we have come over, go to court. We will only move the wall if the court tells us’.

“This is a case where the defendants have acted in a high-handed manner and have simply not told the truth from the very start and, when told that there was an issue here, have carried on regardless.”

The judge said he would make an injunction, directing the Ashrafs to remove their extension wall.

He also told them to reinstate a fencepost they removed and made a declaration that the fence between the two houses belongs to the Dhinjans.

As well as having to pay their own costs, he ordered Mr and Mrs Ashraf to pay their neighbours' lawyers bills - estimated at almost £100,000, with £49,009 up front.

The total cost of the case was estimated by lawyers outside court at around £200,000, on top of which Mr and Mrs Ashraf will face the costs of tearing apart and rebuilding their extension.