Neighbours 50ft tree/conifer 2m away from property. Advice gratefully recieved!

[Dman77]

Hi Friendly tree experts.

 

Ive already checked in this section of the forum to see if my problem can be solved. There are similar threads but not exactly the same. Id appreciate some advice.

 

We are buying a house (early stages) and we are really worried that the neighbours 50ft ish tree/conifer which is 2m (trunk) away from our potential property (kitchen corner of the house) has roots all around our foundations waiting to cause untold destruction/subsidence.

No obvious cracks in exterior walls (no survey yet) but father inlaw has said to pull out the sale immediately as subsidence is a real possibility in ?years.

 

First of all - can anyone tell me what this is? This is a view from a neighbour (next to tree owner). Thats my potential house side wall.

 

 

 

(Never uploaded so hope that worked)

 

Based on that tree, what roots are likely? Shallow/deep, known for damage?

This is deep surrey near M25 and told clay is likely. House built mid 50,s.

 

I really dont want to start a long process unnecessarly if you kind folk think id be nuts to touch a property with this massive thing 2 meters away

Ps the neighnour also has 4 smaller ones half height of this 1 m each away along the boundary so probably root city down there

 

Any comments welcome. We really are stressing over this.

Cheers all

Dave

[Dman77]

why on earth didnt pictures work? Copied url from photobucket.

 

G

 

Try again

[Steve Bullman]

[Steve Bullman]

its a leylandii

[Dman77]

Lol why can i only see my image on your reply!

 

Thanks for the answer. I actually asked the neighbour if it was a leylandi and he thought it was a tree. Ok one part of puzzle solved. Thanks

[Steve Bullman]

I saved the image from photo bucket and uploaded the file to Arbtalk in my reply. Not sure why your photo bucket link wasn't working

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Arbtalk

[Gnome]

It is a tree and its only going to get bigger. Personally i wouldn't want that next to my house. The fact it is on the neighbours side means you have no control on the size and the amount of damage it can cause by either increasing in volume or if the tree is removed the resulting underground issues. Just my opinion. Nothing wrong with leylandii if in the right place or kept to an appropriate size.

[Dman77]

Yeah my sentiments too. Not sure what the mortgage lender will think either. Think this move is doomed. Thanks for replying.

[treequip]

Given that the tree is indeed in third party ownership, you have no control over it except perhaps by negotiation.

 

Regards the potential subsidence, its far from a given and depends on many factors that I would wager the FIL knows little about. It is a specialist area.

 

Touch base with a surveyor and see what he thinks about subsidence risks before you get into commissioning a survey.

 

Your lender may or may nor insist on a specialist report, it often depends on any recommendations in the surveyors report.

[Dman77]

Yeah, all sensible comments.

I guess one of our concerns would be that despite the surveyors and then specialist reports, there would still be shoulder shrugging all around as no one can see underground.

I guess what im asking is -'How good/accurate/confident can these reports be?

[Duncansimpson]

I would speak to the neighbours and see how they feel about the tree. If their tree is threatening your foundations then they are responsible and will need to take action and deal with it.