A dream garden flat?

They were a young couple looking forward to buying their first home together.

But days after moving in, the couple realised something was wrong when a stranger they found wandering around their lawn turned out to be the upstairs neighbour, who told them the garden was also his.

To make matters worse, Ms Brittain had noticed a second door to the garden when she first viewed the £170,000 property in Earlsfield in July and asked the estate agents about it.

She was told it was simply a fire exit and not to worry about it.

The couple reported property company Townends to trading standards officers and it was fined £4,000 after admitting offences under the Property Misdescriptions Act at South Western magistrates' court.

Ms Brittain, 26, an events organiser, said: "I made it clear one of my main requirements was a private garden. I was gutted to discover we would not have it to ourselves. Had we been told the truth from the start we would not have bought the flat. I had asked the agent what the other door was for and he told me it was probably a fire exit for the other flat. I asked him again if the garden was private and not shared and he assured me it was private."

But, she said, after moving in in October: "I was in the kitchen and suddenly noticed a stranger in our garden. I went out to find out what was going on and it turned out to be our neighbour, who told me the garden belonged to him as well. I was horrified, but when we both checked our leases we found he was right and the garden was indeed shared."

The property had been advertised on the Townends website as having a "private rear garden". Now the court case has ended, the couple said they would be suing the estate agents, based in Garratt Lane, for damages.

In court, Townends claimed its website was being run by another company and it had now put in procedures to avoid similar mistakes occurring again.

The couple's solicitor knew the garden was shared after studying the lease, but never mentioned it because he thought they knew. Surveyors are not legally required to examine leases.

Eddie Lister, leader of Wandsworth council whose trading standards department investigated the case, said Townends had acted irresponsibly.