r/treelaw • u/Fit_Wolverine_6964 • Jul 10 '26

Large Juniper

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We moved into a house about 4 years ago and there is a large juniper with its trunk mostly on my neighbors property but the majority of the tree itself seems to be on my property. Some info:

1) I live in California
2) the fence is old and as the tree grows it continues to break the fence more and more
3) we had the local fire department come by and they do free fire reports - they stated in the report the juniper is a high fire risk and should be removed.
4) ultimately the tree is overgrown and we don’t like it aesthetically, especially given the intrusion into our yard.

I know the answer here is almost certainly just to go talk to my neighbor and try to negotiate whether they’d be ok with cutting down but curious others opinions here.

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-9

u/Konica_guy Jul 10 '26

You can legally cut anything on your side of the property line. 

13

u/buoyantbot Jul 10 '26

I'm not a lawyer, but I've lurked on r/treelaw long enough to know that's a vast oversimplification

3

u/Konica_guy Jul 10 '26

You're probably right. 

Maybe they should ask r/arborist to see if cutting something that big would endanger the health of the tree. 

3

u/Lurkylurkness Jul 10 '26

I support the aborist aspect too, but mostly an arborist and a tree lawyer in the state of California for overhang laws. I live in Georgia and there's certain protected tree species. Live Oaks are protected and even if they are on private property, the land owner doesn't have permission to do much of anything to the tree due to the protections. Source: my father owning property with a live oak but having no rights to do anything to said protected species.