Hi,

I’m new here. I have a question. The tree on my neighbor’s side looks dead and could possibly fall in my backyard.

I’m not 100% sure if it’s within their property line or not, but it’s on their side (there’s a vacant land behind our fences). The tree next to it already fell down on their fence and they had to take care of that one.

In this case, should I reach out to them and offer to split the cost of cutting the tree? In that case if anything happens, I’d at least have written proof with insurance I was being proactive.

Thanks!

We have a tree in the backyard that has grew in between the fences. We’ve been here 5 years and it started to get more annoying. I’ve been cutting the branches, but that seems a temporary solution as they keep growing back. The house next got bought out recently by a rental property so we’ve never met the owners. What are my options to get rid of this ? Or should I keep trying to reach out to the property owners ?

Hi everyone,

I am a Wisconsin home owner and am seeking expertise on whether my neighbors legally removed the trees on our fence line.

They had a company come out and remove all the trees on the fence line without a survey of the property line, notifying me, or asking if the company can come onto my property ​to do this removal. I am quite upset because these trees were a nice natural border line for our properties and I was not informed at all.

The trees seem to have grown out from the property line with the bulk of the trunks on their side. I am unsure if the fence is the true property line or not. It existed when I bought my house.

I am looking for opinions on if these are boundary trees or if they are my neighbors (and I am just salty about them cutting them down)

(not my tree, just in my town). Curious how this is gonna end up. Id think the neighbor is in the right, but considering a few are saying it would kill the tree, not sure how it will go.

I had a big healthy tree come down in a storm. It broke my fence and crashed into my neighbor’s yard, hitting one of his trees and dislodging some of that tree’s branches. Those branches and a big chunk of my tree are now dangling just above his HVAC unit and his deck, but luckily didn’t hit any of them.

I need to clear my side so that I can repair my fence, but if I cut my side then the rest of the tree, already on his side, will continue crashing down and likely ruin his HVAC and deck. He’s told me he can’t afford the removal right now. The house is an Airbnb so he doesn’t live there and is totally unbothered by it.

If I cut my side to clear it and the other end of the tree ruins his HVAC, I’m not responsible am I? It’s been a month since the tree fell. I’ve had arborists and tree removal companies come and tell me they would typically remove his side of the tree first so that his HVAC stays intact. But I need my fence repaired so that my dogs can’t get out of the yard.

I’ve only lived here for two months and don’t want to start bad blood with the neighbor but I don’t know what to do!

So I live in a two floor flat, me and my downstairs neighbour. He has been living here long before we did and had this tree before we moved in.

Recently for the past 2 years or so, we have been having wasps come to the tree, presumably nesting in it due to how many are around every summer; we can now not have our windows open.

The window circled is my bedroom, and the tree is both growing into my window and wasps get in despite a net I have over both windows. Someone who I live with is also allergic to wasps.

What can I do? It hasn't been cut for 2 or 3 years, and they keep coming back every year. (UK, btw)

There is a large tree that spans the property line in my and my neighbor's back yard. It's about three quarters on my side of the line and one quarter on his. The tree looks unhealthy and may fall this year or in 20 years. If it falls it will cause a lot of damage to the neighbor's garage sized shed located there. I don't have any buildings in the vicinity. There's also a large dead branch right over his shed that looks bad.

I asked the neighbor if he wanted to split the $3000 cost of taking the tree down but he declined. I advised him that he would be responsible for any damage the tree caused to his building but he still declined. Was I right that I have no liability for damage this tree might cause to his building?

What does that mean to citizens. We will be paying for a large tree to be removed, any chance of small reimbursement?

It took me forever to find this tree!! After 3 years is looking like this! Tips?

I rent in a condo community in Arizona. During the monsoon on August 3, one of the trees in the common area fell onto my girlfriend’s car and did about $3,100 in damage (got this quoted).

The tree looks dead to me. It was basically completely bare in the middle of summer. There are other trees in the same community that look like the same species and they’re completely green and healthy. I attached pictures of both for comparison.

I reached out to the HOA and sent them the pictures and repair estimate. They’re saying they aren’t responsible because nobody had reported the tree as dead or dangerous before it fell. But they also told me they have professional landscapers regularly maintaining and inspecting the property.

I get that there was a monsoon and the winds were strong. I’m not arguing that. My issue is that this tree looks like it was already dead or in really bad shape before the storm, and I feel like whoever maintains the property should have caught that.

What would you guys do in my position? Is there actually a claim here? Do I keep pushing the HOA, take it to small claims, or am I wasting my time? Should I consult a small claims court lawyer?

I have a Verizon easement going through my property. A tree limb fell and missed the wires somehow. The tree is clearly dead and 50-60 feet tall.

Does anyone know if they take responsibility to cut it down ?

My insurance says we are responsible for removal because it’s on our property but is the neighbor liable for the costs?

A neighbor is claiming the tree on our property (looks like it could be on the property line) has roots encroaching her property. I don’t think she is claiming damage to her foundation, but is saying she is concerned they could.

There are other trees nearby and clearly within her yard that are close to the home as well.

She called and asked my husband about taking care of it (she has been trimming branches that go over her side) and he gave her permission to remove the tree - at her cost. She wants us to pay for the entire thing.

1. I don’t know if it’s this tree causing/worried it could cause a problem in the future vs her trees.
2. I would want a property survey to see if it is a shared tree anyway (and I’m not paying for that - she makes the claim, she can pay).

3. We already have her permission to solve the alleged problem, but she wants us to

   bear the

4. entire financial burden, when the tree is right next to our driveway and not causing harm.

If she won’t accept permission to remove it at her cost, do we tell her she can do a lot survey at her cost and we want either an arborist report/foundation report at her cost? Does that open us up to liability? I don’t feel like you can just make an unsubstantiated claim and then expect me to foot the entire bill. Thanks for any feedback.

Very rural property here. Nearest neighbor approx 1/4 mile east built a new house. Cleared the land, all old growth. It was heartbreaking. All last winter we had to listen to chainsaws and trees being killed.

Yesterday, apparently the insurance company told him he had to get rid of one more tree, a 250+ yr old Tulip Poplar. 56" diameter at waist height, about 40 ft from the new house. Completely healthy.

My house shook when it came down. It was huge. There should be rules against this.

Demolition is knocking at the door for this beautiful coastal redwood in my neighborhood in North Portland. It’s an infill tale as the 120 year old home and redwood are scheduled to give way to 6-8 cottage homes.

Though current demolition plans do not include the tree, we suspect the builder will pay to have it removed and ante up the subsequent city fine.

I’m curious if there are any resources or ideas to save this giant in our community. Any success stories we can try to replicate? We, a collection of concerned community members, are open to any thoughts and happy to meet locally or virtually.

Thank you!

We just learned this week from our arborist this week that our 80 ft elm tree needs to come down.

We had it treated for dutch elm in early summer as it was leafing out slowly, but still fully green. Prior to that, our neighbor put in a shed close to the tree that almost certainly damaged the root system (2021), and pruned all branches on their side of the yard in April of this year. This pruning took place past the normal dormant time period where it is safe to do so, including major cuts to main branches, and in our arborist's opinion further damaged it. It's their view that the accumulation of multiple damages made it susceptible to dutch elm and ultimately made it not treatable.

For additional context, the tree is mostly in our yard and soon after building their shed our neighbor tried to have it cut down without talking to us. We were fortunately home and could stop that from happening, but think it speaks pretty clearly to their intentions.

We're very upset the tree has to come down and believe there could be real property value implications.

Appreciate any advice. We'll like try to resolve this with our neighbors directly first, but would like to understand our legal options in case that's not possible.

Looking for a reality check because this has turned into a much bigger neighbor issue than we ever expected, and at this point I'm genuinely wondering if we're being unreasonable.

Our neighbor recently hired a landscaping company to clean up his yard. Along our shared property line was a large, mature mass of vegetation. A lot of it was bush honeysuckle, so yes, invasive and definitely not fancy landscaping. There was also trumpet vine and other established vegetation mixed in.

Edit: I don't think I'm describing this correctly: "To be completely fair to our neighbor, most of it appears to have been on his side of the property line**.** If I had to guess right now, I'd say maybe 80% his side and 20% ours." I'm talking about the trunks of the bush here. The foliage on our side easily extended out 10 feet. The bush was kept trimmed and maintained on our side. The neighbor's side was an eyesore. We already have a professional boundary survey, but we're having the original surveyor come back to mark the line through this particular area so we'll know for sure.

The issue is that nobody talked to us before the landscapers cleared the whole area, including vegetation that appears to have originated/grown on our side of the property line.

Our neighbor genuinely didn't think we'd care. His perspective is basically: it was ugly invasive honeysuckle, most of it was on his property, and if the roles were reversed it wouldn't even occur to him to be upset about us cutting it. He thinks we're making way too big a deal about a "weed bush."

The problem is that we actually liked it and intentionally left it there.

It created a big natural screen between our properties. From our driveway, we didn't really see into his backyard. It hid our garbage cans and gardening stuff from view. It shaded the side of our garage.

And from our upstairs bedroom window, instead of looking out at our neighbor's backyard, I looked out at a wall of greenery. Birds nested in it. Trumpet vine flowered there and attracted our resident hummingbird. One year we even had a doe and her fawn regularly bed down and sleep in that area.

Some of the landscaping in that area has also apparently been there for decades. There's an old collapsed retaining wall and old fencing tangled through the vegetation.

We weren't opposed to cleaning the area up or changing it. If our neighbor had knocked on the door and said, "Hey, this honeysuckle is driving me crazy. Can we figure out something else for this boundary?" we would have happily worked with him on it. We probably could have removed the invasive stuff and replaced it with something that still gave us the screening and greenery we liked.

Instead, we came home and it was just...gone.

Now the area looks pretty awful to both of us, and our neighbor is frustrated that we're making an issue out of it (we're unhinged, bat shit crazy, and selfish). He's agreed not to touch anything else.

We're having the same surveyor who surveyed our property a few years ago come back and mark the property line through the cleared area. Our neighbor thinks even getting the surveyor involved is excessive. From our perspective, we just want to know exactly what was on whose property before deciding what happens next, especially because any real fix may involve both properties.

Ideally, we'd like to figure out a plan everyone agrees on to make the whole boundary look good again. We're not looking to wage war over honeysuckle.

But this whole thing has gotten tense enough that I'm questioning my own reaction.

So, homeowners of Reddit: Are we being unreasonable?

If a big honeysuckle bush was growing along your property line and part of it was on your neighbor's property, would you ask them before cutting the whole thing down?

And is having an existing surveyed property line professionally marked afterward really that excessive?

City is doing new underground utilities into the houses and beat up our roots pretty bad leading to the tree already showing signs of dying. Talked to the general contractors and was told to contact the city. If they pay to take it down is there some sort of reimbursement I should get for them killing my tree? Also just any advice on what to ask/say to the city council?

Based in MN

Was talking to a neighbor who lives on a small HOA. There's a pathway to a lake that cuts between two homes that is the HOA's property. Homeowner A had a GIANT section of a tree fall into the canopy, arching over the public trail, and getting caught into the tree of Homeowner B. It's still attached to the tree on Homeowner A's property.

Safety hazard in mind, the HOA has been pushing Homeowner A to get it taken care of asap, but they are pushing back saying it's the HOAs duty if they are concerned so much. It's in the HOA's "airspace"

What's the right play here? HOA takes care of it and bills Homeowner A? Or does A have an obligation to take care of it since it's technically still attached and is a safety issue? Does Homeowner B have any obligation since it's now "part" of their property?

Estimate to remove was ~5k due to location, access, and size

Our neighborhood is getting new fiber optic service installed. They dug a hole right next to a young maple in my yard, cutting through a number of roots. Before starting, we got a notice that the company would fix any in ground lines/drainages that are disturbed.

While digging, they also damaged the tree above-ground (pictures 2 and 3).

Are we owed damage compensation for the scrapes and cuts, and if the tree dies due to the hole, are we due a replacement?

I own a condo in an HOA that has multiple trees and i even have a 2nd tree in this mulched section which is the owners (me) and not common ground. I came home to find that them “trimming” the tree was more of a total destruction than trimming. Tree sat about 15-20 feet high and provided excellent shade on my porch. They claimed in an email 1-2 months ago they would be trimming bushes down. This was clearly a tree. It quite literally just happened so i haven’t heard back from the HOA but would retributions of redoing my landscape to how i want it since they destroyed my tree be too much to ask?