Neighbour row erupts as London homeowner sues council over mental health concerns after Montenegro embassy moves in next door

Her case rests on the claim that the local authority neglected to consider how the conversion would affect her mental wellbeing, The Guardian reports.

Ms Simpson, whose family has lived on the street for over three decades, is the daughter of a former American diplomat.

She receives disability benefits following diagnoses of clinical anxiety, long Covid and a functional neurological disorder.

Ms Simpson has described in her statement of grounds how the embassy’s presence has severely disrupted her sleep.

The 35-year-old alleged: “I frequently feel the need to sleep in an alternative to my lifelong bedroom, to gain some marginal relief.

“Sometimes pre-emptively, sometimes in the middle of the night when I cannot reason with my activated primal ‘fear’ brain response (for example, upon hearing a creak, and immediately fearing an intruder accessing my room from the embassy, despite knowing the possibility is very slim and that this response is mostly irrational).”

Her legal challenge cites violations of both the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act.

The 35-year-old has also questioned whether it “remains tenable for me to continue to live in this house, which I had anticipated having the option of living in for the rest of my life”.

Ms Simpson maintains the council acted irrationally and conducted a defective public consultation, having already made up its mind once the Foreign Office granted approval.

Westminster City Council has rejected all allegations, saying in its defence: “There is no plausible interference with the claimant’s home or her private and family life.”

One neighbour complained to the council earlier this spring that the “flagpole and rather tacky-looking flag stick out like a sore thumb” amid the street’s Grade II-listed properties.

Another local branded Montenegro’s red and gold-bordered standard “gaudy,” arguing it clashed with the “quietly dignified” late-Regency facades originally designed by Thomas Cubitt.

The flagpole and plaque had been installed without any prior planning application, a point of particular frustration for several residents.

Montenegro’s chargé d’affaires attempted to smooth relations by hosting an evening reception with drinks and canapes for neighbours.

“Perhaps it would have been diplomatic to have done that at the start,” one attendee told The Guardian.

The case has also thrown a spotlight on a growing trend of smaller nations establishing their diplomatic premises in converted residential properties across the capital’s wealthier neighbourhoods.

Larger powers tend to occupy purpose-built structures or grand addresses in Belgravia, South Kensington and Mayfair, but less well-funded states often settle for nearby but more affordable locations.

Turkmenistan recently set up its embassy in an adapted family home on Victoria Road in Kensington, prompting similar complaints from locals.

North Korea’s embassy has occupied a seven-bedroom 1920s house in Acton for two decades – but neighbours have said the hermit kingdom’s diplomatic mission has not caused any disruption to the area.