Squatter in Knightsbridge flat told to 'pay repairs or get out'

A squatter who gained the right to live free in a £1m Knightsbridge flat may have to move out after a court ordered her yesterday to pay half the cost of repairing the roof.

Elizabeth Smee, who won squatters' rights after the flat's owners moved out to join a religious order, was ordered to pay £9,000 for repairs and damages. The 58-year-old spinster, who has lived in Queensgate Place Mews since 1975, said she had no money for repairs, but the court ordered her to move out if she could not afford the maintenance.

She won the freehold to the first and second floors of the property in 1987. She had lived there for 12 years after the couple who owned the flat left to join a Carmelite order. Since then the company that owns the ground floor, Abbahall Ltd, has been trying to get her to pay for repairs to stop rain pouring through the building and damaging property.

The company made emergency repairs in 1994 and took her to court to recover £13,000 in January this year, when she was ordered to pay 25 per cent of the costs.

Abbahall challenged that ruling in the Appeal Court yesterday, and Mr Justice Munby doubled the amount Ms Smee should pay. Ms Smee now faces a bill for £6,500 of repair work and £2,500 damages. The judge said: "The reality, assuming that Miss Smee really does not have the money to pay her appropriate share of the cost, is that she is choosing to live in a property she cannot afford.

"If she cannot afford to do so, then I can see no reason why her poverty should throw the burden, or an increased burden, on her neighbour."

After the ruling, Michael Grenfell, the solicitor for Abbahall, said: "It seems utterly ridiculous we have had to come to this stage for what ordinary neighbours would take for granted."