Neighbours and trees
 

Our nicely considerate neighbour has a silver birch tree about 6 foot from our house, which is about twice as high as the house. It overhangs our land by miles to the point where it is overhanging the house. It also drops loads of shyte all over our garden, and in our guttering etc.

I understand there is a law which says we can chop level with the fence, as long as we give them back the cuttings. We've done this with their array of other trees which overhang our land and drop shyte, but we can't reach this mother.

Is there anyway they can be forced into paying a tree surgeon to chop it level with the fence? They currently take absolutely no responsibility and just stand their laughing when we talk about the way the overhanging trees ruin our house and garden. They even have the nerve to throw back the droppings from their trees when we collect and return them to their side of the fence!!


Andy

Time to speak to a Lawyer.

Legally, the tree is their property, and as such, any overhanging clippings must be returned to them....

So, you've done everything correctly so far.

I think what you've done is probably the limit of what you can legally do anyway. ie, cut down anything on your side.

I'm not sure of the law further than that.

i don't think you can force you neighbour to do anything.

To keep the peace I'd bite the bullet and pay the tree surgeon myself. Sending lawyers letters and falling out with your neighbours aint a good idea IMHO. They might plant more trees just to p*ss you off!

BTW i have a similar situation myself. I have a few mature trees in my property that overhang the neighbours garden. None overhang their houses though.

I reckon they wouldn't let the tree geezers onto their land though.

you've got two options then...

1. Do the right thing and do everything by the book. Speak to your lawyers etc.

2. Hire a tree surgeon and cut the branches off. He probably won't think twice about using their property to gain access to the tree. Unless of course they have a huge fence, big dogs etc. Just do it when they are at work.

Why not speak to a tree surgeon? They deal with this type of thing day in day out

Acid irrigation should do the trick.

They're retired bitter old people who let their silly little dogs yap outside at 2am because "you can't stop a dog barking", so they are in most of the time. Oh and once they get them in they then yap in the house which still makes a racket. The for full-decat i think.

6 foot fence which can't really be scaled as its a bit rickety.

Will have to go see a solicitor then, was just seeing if anyone here had had dealings with similar.

don't waste your money going to see a solicitor - they can't tell you anything more than i can. i have been a tree surgeon and also a tree officer in a local authority planning department.

basically, if you don't live in a conservation area, and the tree isn't protected by a TPO (you can find out by telephoning your local planning authority) then you are within your rights to cut back any overhanging parts of the tree to the boundary line. as already mentioned, you should offer the resulting bits of tree to your neighbour, as they are technically his property. he won't want them, in which case you should arrange to get rid of them yourself.

if you get a tree surgeon in to do the work, he won't be able to enter your neighbour's property without their permission. however, if the trunk of the tree is very near the boundary, he can simply put a ladder against the tree from your side, climb up and do his work. your neighbour probably won't like it but there's not much he can do. the only thing you can't do, is carry out works that leve the tree in a dangerous state. i.e. cut through roots or leave it so unbalanced as to be at risk of falling down.

the best bet IMO is to speak to your neighbour, explain the problem and offer to pay for a tree surgeon to carry out the pruning work. you have next to no chance of forcing your neighbour to pay to have the work done.

hth
:)

*cough*copper nail*cough*

John.

myth i'm afraid.

all that will do is blunt the tree surgeon's chainsaw when he comes to chop it down. a liberal sprinkling of salt in the vicinty of the roots can, err, "help", though.

Distances are a bit deceptive on this pic, but shows how far from fence it is. Dunno if it's too far???

http://www.sidtech.co.uk/iu/sidhead5085671015.jpg

Andy

i guess that it would be possible to get into the tree from your side using a double extension ladder - however whislt up the tree he would be technically trespassing on your neighbour's property. as i said before - there isn't a great deal your neighbour could do about this, but the tree surgeon may not want to get involved in a load of agrravation. it really is better to try and get the old c***s next door to agree to the work. sling them a bottle of sweet sherry and they'll be eating out of your hand.

:)

Or wait until they are out !

I thought copper nails would kill a tree ??

is this true?damn it!
ive just chopped down a fern tree as im having a garage built and it was in the way.its at root level at the moment,and i was gunna copper nail it and concrete over it,wot should i do now?
sorry for hijacking this thread,but the myth comment has really thrown me.

BM

copper nails do f*** all. if you are going to concrete over it, it is unlikely to grow back in any case. not sure what you mean by a "fern tree" but most conifer species don't grow back once you cut them down to a stump. if you're not sure, a good dose of salt on and around the stump will finish it off (and by "good dose" think in terms of a kilo or two)

Drilling a few holes into the trunk and injecting Roundup (glysophate) won't leave it feeling very well, either.

Brick acid should finish it off nicely (and everything else nearby !!!)

Dave

Its difficult to see from that picture how far it overhangs. How big are the branches in question? Can you reach them with a branch lopper or a rope saw?

Certainly a difficult job to do with the tree being that tall. It is a pity that the neighbours are so awkward or more to the point just don't care. Too much of that sort of thing these days. People used to be generally more responsible in their attitude towards their neighbours.

I suppose you can only follow the good advice you have been given so far, but try to avoid laying yourself open to any kind of action in return.

Les

Just seen the pic. Sod the birch, WHOSE ARE THOSE SODDING GREAT LEYLANDII?

I can't see your problem. It's hardly overhanging at all. Trees are nice. They attract wildlife into everyone's garden, especially pretty British species like that. It's a shame when people can't appreciate a beautiful thing for what it is, rather than as a pesky nuisance deliberately foisted upon them by an evil, inconsiderate neighbour.

My next-door-neigbour had a vast twin-trunked cherry tree that looked spectacular in spring. It overhung my property by miles, but I didn't care. It was fantastic. He cut it down one day and I felt completey gutted. :(

I'm no expert, but it looks to me like both the silver birch and the horse chestnut have both been badly pruned in the past. The lower branches have been chopped off, making the trees bolt upwards.

They should have trimmed the lower branches and then topped the trees to an acceptable, neighbourly height.

Silver birch is a beautiful tree IMHO, including the one in the pic.

Have to agree about the leylandiis though, hideous.

The pic doesn't seem to show much of an overhang.

Loads of sap crap dripping onto my car from the neighbours tree, and yesterday covered in these green fly type things, not to mention the guttering gets clogged up with crap.

The tree isnt even overhanging!

Can't get a pic of it with anything else in the pic. It comes over the kitchen (end of our house, and over all of the land infront of my window. It comes right over the house above my window too.

Yes, all the other trees are theirs too! There's a fock-off huge conker tree behind the birch!

I agree with you to a point (i was mainly posting this for my rents) BUT there is really no need to have a big fecker overhanging the house. It would have been fine towards the bottom of the garden!

Looking at the scale of things on that picture the whole garden is a hideous example of seclusion!!

All that light lost to terrible examples of unattractive trees should be a crime!!

Having said that am I right in thinking they must have been fairly mature when you moved in?

In which case I wouldn't have. :D

Well it was about 12yrs ago, so most of them were big yep - BUT we'd never had experience of people overhanging their trees into your garden (house) so were taken a bit unawares. And my mom just LOVED the house :rolleyes:

There were more leylandi along our fence, including one right next to the birch, by our fence. But my dad "trimmed" them level with the fence so they had em removed.

The birch's branches don't really begin to overhang our side until higher than the house, so most cutting devices = no good.

So it's her problem, can she abseil? :D:D

Just go round in the night or when they go out and cut the mother down. There!!! Job done!!! :D if they ask, which they no doubt will, tell them it was a bunch of tree fetish kids then laugh away. :D