It is not a classic neighbour-from-hell dispute, what with the protagonist inviting everyone over for evening drinks and canapés. But the sudden conversion of a five-bedroom family home in Pimlico, central London , into the embassy of Montenegro has triggered a neighbourhood row that has gone all the way to the desk of a high court judge.

The first stirrings of trouble came when one resident argued in a submission to the council this spring that the new embassy’s “flagpole and rather tacky-looking flag stick out like a sore thumb” among Cambridge Street’s Grade II-listed homes.

A second person, who described Montenegro’s red flag with gold border as “gaudy”, suggested the embassy was “out of keeping with the quietly dignified” whitewash late-Regency frontages designed by Thomas Cubitt.

Some of those critics, frustrated by the lack of planning application before the installation of the embassy flagpole and plaque, were somewhat placated when drinks were put on by the chargé d’affaires of the west Balkans…