Mature trees close to neighbouring properties

[Mafegi]

Hi All,

 

We have some land which borders a housing development (built about 60 years ago).  Along the boundary (on our side) is a line of mature trees which have been there for 180+ years.

 

We get the trees regularly inspected by tree surgeons, and occasionally have some taken out.  Last year one of the large beeches fell over and flattened a neighbour’s garden shed.  Legally I don’t think we were liable because the beech had shown no signs of disease.  However, as a gesture of good will, we did pay to have the tree removed.

 

The trees are at the bottom of a slope, and the houses are further down, so the only way we could remove the fallen tree was by hiring a crane to lift it over the houses.  This was obviously an expensive exercise, costing us over £10k.

 

After this incident we got in tree surgeons to remove roughly half of the 30-odd trees – basically any that showed the slightest sign of vulnerability.  (Again, this was at vast expense!)  As a tree lover, I find this pretty devastating.  The once magnificent swathe of trees is now reduced to a sorry shadow of its former self.

 

Even after all we have done, we still have a neighbour complaining to us of anxiety because they are afraid the tree next to their plot presents a risk to their lives and property.  I can understand that, but haven’t we done enough?  Is it really our problem?  The trees were there long before the houses!

 

As I understand it, the law says we are only liable if a tree falls which was known to be unsafe, e.g. “damaged or diseased”.  What if the trees are perfectly healthy but on a slope – if one does fall there’s only one way it’ll go: downhill towards the houses.

 

Regards,
Mafegi

 

p.s. We are in Northern Ireland.

 

[Treeation]

Sounds like you have done a lot to try and reduce the risk of failure and associated damage - Felling 30 trees with minor defects sounds excessive but obviously I have know idea of the site of real context, what I would say, as the case in England would be anyway, is legally speaking it is your duty of care to take reasonable measures to ensure people and property will not come to harm. This is best done in my opinion by using a qualified tree surveyor who can prove their competence if a case ever ended up in court. The problem with using tree surgeons for advice is their can be a huge range level of knowledge - from barely knowing what tree they might be climbing upto consulting level, on top of that there might be a conflict of interests and agenda to win more work etc....Id say if you want to protect yourself to the highest degree I would be hiring a decent independent tree surveyor who has the Professional Tree inspection qual (PTI) and insurance to give arb advice and is capable of producing a decent tree report. The tree surveyor would advice on an inspection regime that would be likely every 18-36months...it might well have saved you a fair few quid and a few trees if you had got a surveyor in before any work took place but hindsight is wonderful thing.

[Khriss]

Wot he said... A clear, accurate and defendable record by a competent person carried out periodically.  Then leave it to yr lawyer. K

[Mafegi]

Thanks both for your advice.  I’ll check who we’ve been getting advice from (it’s been handled by a relative) and if necessary, we will look into getting a suitably qualified surveyor with PI insurance.  I certainly feel we’ve already gone beyond “reasonable measures” and it’s time we stopped chopping down perfectly good trees to appease the neighbours.

Out of interest, what should we have done with the tree that blew over and flattened a neighbour’s shed last year?  Assuming we could prove the tree had been inspected and found to be fine, should we just have said “not our problem” and left it up to the homeowner’s insurance?  (I think we paid for it out of our insurance, but I’m not certain.)

[Paddy1000111]

+1 for the advice above. Get in someone suitably qualified as sadly a "tree surgeon" pretty much covers someone who has a chainsaw. Some advertised "tree surgeons" don't even have the basic NTPC quals... Get in a certified and insured surveyor.

 

Is there something particularly worrying you about these trees? There's always a reason for a tree to fail and it sounds like the branch that fell was probably a V union or something that weakened it if it wasn't an obvious diseased/dead limb. Personally I would have had someone who's worth their salt inspect the tree (I'm not saying your guy isn't, everyone has a slip every now and again but you want a surveyor that has the quals and insurance) and then maybe look at a crown thinning programme for them to reduce their sail factor (how much the wind catches them). If you have a big tree that isn't caught by the wind so much then you have a lot less to worry about and the additional light through the canopy can make for attractive trees.

 

If you have branches that you are concerned about but the assessor has deemed safe then maybe look at installing a bracing kit like cobra, especially if you have a neighbour that is kicking off about one branch in particular. If something happened and it went to court you have all your bases covered, you got in an certificated and insured surveyor who signed them off and then you had a qualified arborist install a cobra support system as a backup. You can only be held responsible for acting maliciously or with neglect....

 

If you are going to employ a crown thinning programme (maybe every 5 years or so) then I wouldn't bother with the cobra system. At the end of the day we have had erratic weather recently. Trees are growing fast and hard and because of the sun/heat they are keeping their full crowns later than usual and the weather suddenly turns and we have a strong wind and it overpowers the branch. Personally if you are that concerned with trees, and I mean this at your neighbours, then don't buy a house with massive trees in the back garden, move into a building where all of nature has been deleted... We live on the earth, it doesn't live for us 

[Mafegi]

Personally, I’m not massively worried, but my family wants to be satisfied that we’ve done everything reasonable and that if another tree does fall causing damage we can’t be held liable.  

 

The tree which fell last year was a large, roughly 200-yo beech.  When I say it flattened a neighbour’s shed I really do mean flattened.  It appeared to be a perfectly healthy tree – it just blew over.  That’s not really unusual and I wouldn’t normally worry about it, but it does seem to have spooked the neighbours.

 

Depending on what the surveyor says, I expect some crown thinning every few years probably will be the way to go.  Hopefully that will help extend the lives of the trees too.

 

I particularly agree with your last point.  These trees have been on our land for generations, and it wasn’t us that build a row of houses next to them!