A former City investment banker who retired to the Algarve has described her years of hell after an ‘aggressive’ neighbour took over her land and drove her out of her home, forcing her to go into hiding.
Orla Dargan, 65, bought her dream Portuguese villa for around €600,000 in 2016, and lived there happily for several years before her neighbour, an estate agent she describes as a ‘dangerous’ man, moved in next door.
The mother-of-two was warned about his ‘temper’, she says, and went on to face years of threatening behaviour, including an alleged attempt to drive her off the road near her home.
After going to visit family in Ireland in late 2021, she said she returned weeks later to find diggers had been ordered onto her land, with the fence between their properties moved and a pumphouse for a hot tub erected nearby.
Years of legal wrangling ensued, with a judge eventually siding with Ms Dargan and ordering the neighbour to return her land – which has still not happened more than a year on.
The most chilling part of her ordeal was the brutal ‘killing’ of her beloved rescue dog, who first went missing on the day of a court appearance and was later found dead, floating in a shallow well with horrific injuries.
This series of disturbing events has left Ms Dargan living in fear and suffering from PTSD, and she fled the Algarve last year ‘for her own safety’, moving between addresses in Portugal and Spain to avoid detection.
David Mapley, a fraud investigator who has been assisting the ex-pat, said her case is an extreme example of the common occurrence of ‘land grabbing’ in the region – which he and others refer to as the ‘Algrab’.
Orla Dargan in Portugal with her rescue dog Henry, who she says was ‘killed’ amid an ongoing boundary dispute
Orla Dargan, 65, bought her dream Portuguese villa for around €600,000 in 2016
Ms Dargan’s dog Henry went missing and was found dead in a shallow well
The daughter of Irish businessman and ex-AerLingus CEO Michael Dargan and the sister of hedge fund millionaire Alan Dargan, Ms Dargan is originally from Dublin but spent her career in the City of London.
Years after divorcing her husband, she bought her dream house in Santa Barbara De Nexe, an area popular with British and Irish ex-pats and known for its celebrity residents, in the hope of having a quiet life after a high-flying career.
‘It’s a very small town, home to some of the wealthiest houses in the Faro district. I just wanted a quieter place to live, but it turned into a nightmare,’ she told MailOnline.
When her neighbour first moved in, Ms Dargan claims his construction workers ‘harrassed and intimidated’ her, saying they threw rubbish into her property and urinated publicly in front of it.
Things went from bad to worse, she said, when a boundary dispute erupted in March 2021, with Ms Dargan claiming her neighbour ordered the workers to infringe onto her land.
She says he had moved the fence between their properties, digging up the earth and putting piles of rocks along it to increase the height of the property – making a ‘mess’ of her property as they gave way.
A small construction and air vent for the neighbour’s jacuzzi had also been put up, she said, ‘on the edge’ of her land, with a pipe coming through the fence releasing ‘toxic waste’ onto her side.
After she challenged him over the apparent land grab, she says he shouted at her and she ran back into her house, fearing he would turn to ‘physical violence’.
She began to lock her doors and windows, fearing for her safety and that of her Portuguese partner, who she lived with at the time.
In July, her neighbour was ordered to hand back her land, which he appealed and refused to do.
Days later, she claims she had been driven off the road by an SUV, forcing her much smaller car into a ditch.
Ms Dargan’s son said his usually calm mother called him immediately afterwards in a state of ’emotional distress’.
She increased security measures, installing CCTV cameras, before she and her partner moved out in January 2022 for the house to undergo a renovation.
Pictured: The sea view from Ms Dargan’s property, which she says she has been unable to live at for more than a year due to renovation works and the alleged threat posed by her neighbour
CCTV image shows Ms Dargan’s villa in Santa Barbara De Nexe undergoing renovation work
While they were living in a rented house in Faro, she said, the neighbour repeatedly trespassed on her land.
She went back to court a second and third time, and says she has so far forked out more than €70,000 in legal fees ‘fighting to get my land back’.
Eventually, in February last year, the neighbour was ordered to give back ten square metres of land and pay damages to Ms Dargan.
He has refused to do so for more than a year, with the former City banker now seeking a new court order and lodging a criminal complaint over his allegedly violent and threatening behaviour.
Disturbingly, on the morning of one court appearance, in December 2022, Ms Dargan’s two pet dogs went missing from her home.
Her son, who has asked not to be named, claims they were taken in a bid to ‘destabilise her mindset’ going into court.
‘It was a tactical manoeuvre, to make sure she was emotionally stressed and not thinking analytically,’ he said.
Ms Dargan bought her dream house in Santa Barbara De Nexe in the hope of having a quiet life after a high-flying career
Pics show some of the wounds inflicted upon Ms Dargan’s pet dog
One of the dogs returned 12 hours later and led Ms Dargan’s daughter to the other one, which was found unable to walk and appeared to have been ‘drugged’.
Then, while she was living at a secret address over ongoing safety concerns last November, the beloved rescue dog named Henry went missing again.
The 37kg animal was only found after Orla hired drone operators, who spotted his body in a shallow well.
Distressing pictures of Henry’s body, seen by MailOnline, appear to show his eyes missing and his stomach and paws covered in lacerations and partially skinned.
Ms Dargan, who first found Henry emaciated and wandering the streets when she moved to Portugal in 2016 and had cared for him for seven years, said she was left shattered by his death.
‘The tipping point was when I lost my dog last November. I was fighting [my neighbour] on every front, but when that happened it broke me.
Ms Dargan said her neighbour built a small construction ‘on the edge’ of her land (left) with a tube (right) said to be releasing waste through the fence onto her side
‘He was my emotional support dog, a very special dog.
‘Had he died by drowning, I could have coped with that. He had a good seven years with me,’ she said.
‘It’s the thoughts of his final moments, being beaten to death, which haunt me.’
Now separated from her partner and continuing to fear for her safety, Ms Dargan has been moving between different addresses in Portugal and Spain for a year.
Her son said his mother is usually a ‘dragon woman’ and has been unshakable throughout her career in the male-dominated City, facing male aggression throughout her life.
‘She is a survivor is the best way to describe her, she will not go down without a fight,’ he said, ‘But she is terrified of this man.’
He said for him and his sister, the experience of seeing their mother traumatised has been ‘terrible’.
‘To see her like this is distressing,’ he said. ‘The increased support that I need to give her, in no time in my life have I ever seen her this affected this.’
Ms Dargan (pictured in Faro) is now moving between various addresses in Portugal and Spain to avoid detection
Ms Dargan said the ordeal has had ‘devastating’ effects on her and that she is now receiving therapy for stress and PTSD.
Financial investigator Mr Mapley lives in the region and has been supporting Ms Dargan for more than a year.
He said that hers is an extreme case, involving physical threat, but is just one of many he has seen in the Algarve.
‘We call it the Algrab,’ he said, referring to the many cases he has seen of retirees facing boundary disputes and other issues with their properties after moving to the region.
‘This could happen to anyone, you could have your beautiful house and then captain constructor sets up next door.
‘You think you’ve got your dream home, you’re all set and then you spend endless money and time and stress in the courts.’
Mr Mapley, who has been working to spread awareness of the issue since he moved to Portugal, is now warning other Brits to be wary of local council ‘corruption’ and ‘land-grabbing’ neighbours when looking to buy in the popular holiday destination.
Ms Dargan said that, after speaking to fellow retirees living in Portugal, she feels she is not alone.
‘I am hearing terrible stories day after day about people who come to Portugal for their retirement years,’ she said.
‘They need to think long and hard about their decision, and be on the look out from the word go.’
What begins as a ‘dream’, she added, ‘can turn into a nightmare very rapidly.’
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