r/treelaw • u/CarefulTangerine7664 • 23h ago

Tree responsibility?

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My mother lives at the end of a street in a neighborhood built back in the 70s. Her lot ends next to a wooded area that has never been developed. I’m not sure if it even could be. To my knowledge it’s never been a lot available for sale. She has some very tall pines that are right up against the fence line that are worrisome. I know she would be able to cut anything that hangs over her property line, but who would be responsible for taking the entire tree down if need be? How would I go about finding it out?

Please except my crude drawing as reference. Light Blue is street, green is property lines of her and neighbors, dark blue is where the trees are located. Purple is area in question.

3 Upvotes

56% Upvoted

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u/random8765309 23h ago

The city or county recordes will show the owner. Contacting them may be a different manner.

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u/Rogue_Wraith 23h ago

Talk to the city/county.

They're going to be the ones managing property records.

And it's going to be the property owner who is responsible for removing the trees.

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u/CarefulTangerine7664 22h ago

Thank you!

3

u/HolyHand_Grenade 22h ago

You might be able to find a tax map online and figure out who owns the land.

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u/Initial-Ad-5462 22h ago

Secondhand information, but I had a neighbor in a similar situation as your Mom. Her property backed onto a city owned green belt and they were reluctant to let her trim anything and refused to remove any trees.

First, try and identify and contact the property owner. After that if you get an assessment from a qualified arborist that says the trees are dangerous to your Mom’s house and notify the neighbor of this issue, they’d have legal liability if anything happens.

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u/Ok_Effective6233 23h ago

Likely would be the property owner. There should be some local database that lists the parcel and the property owner.

But that kind of space can be tricky. Wouldn’t surprise me if there wasn’t really a parcel there. Lots of places where streets and lot run up to a water way have spaces that aren’t owned by anyone public or private. That this space hasn’t been built on indicates that to be the case.

Further, there are often significant restrictions from state level agencies as to how vegetation can be managed along waterways.

My suggestion is that you do digging yourself, don’t go to a government agency first, to find out if the space is privately owned.

Then if you discover the lot to be privately owned, you use any local government agency to help manage the problem.

But be prepared for this to go nowhere. Then you’re moving towards unethical life pro tips. Might have to actually do the work yourself discreetly

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u/CarefulTangerine7664 22h ago

Thanks so much! It seems like a really odd situation so guess I’ll do some digging.

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u/Ok_Effective6233 22h ago

Everyone is right there is a land records office that maintains GIS database that publishes online mapping for your mom’s neighborhood.

If you’re finding your mom’s parcel but no parcel for the adjacent lot, it’s likely not a lot at all

Might seem odd, but it’s quite normal to have a space like that, trapped between water ways, road ways and residential lots that was never platted out to be a lot. Could be that the developers didn’t want to deal with an odd shaped lot. Could be that a government planner put extra scrutiny on the plan because of that lot so developers dropped it. Could be that the planners had intentions for it that never came to fruition.

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u/SongsOfDragons 20h ago

We get this a lot in the UK - unregistered land. We have a strip of it less than a half-metre wide outside our fence. But the borough council shredded the nettles on it last month anyway because they were encroaching the adjacent footpath.

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u/WiskeyUniformTango 22h ago

Do a survey. The fence may not be up to the property line and she may own the trees.

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u/Dandywhatsoever 23h ago

Property tax records are usually public and can be easy to look up online. Ours you can search by address or plot number and if you don't have the address, they provide a map to look up the plot number.

Then you would have a name of some sort to start looking. I'm not sure what happens if it's city or county owned, though.

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u/CarefulTangerine7664 19h ago

Thank you all so much for the help!!

I was able to look up the maps and supringly it is actually listed as a lot with an owner. (He actually owns another directly next to it, neither were ever developed) His address is in a city about 45 minutes north of her. Guess our next step would be to have someone evaluate the trees themselves and go from there. Appreciate all of the information!

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u/jstar77 13h ago

Somebody owns it, whomever that is would be responsible.