Climbing Neighbour's Tree

[Dan Maynard]

 

I think whatever you do the leylandii are going to be huge, no need to cut right back and cause more agro so I would stick to ladder and poles as suggested.

 

The real answer is take them down completely of course, last place I did a back to boundary on leylandii the neighbours hadn't owned the house long so we got the job of taking them out to give back a third of the garden.

[Con]

Oh, and remember,  when you cut the branches, some can lift, and tear if you don't make good cuts. So, if you cut, right on the boundary,  the finish could be inside his boundary.  Some people can be pedantic 

[Steve Bullman]

Photos needed 

[Mark Bolam]

18 hours ago, Mike1234 said:

Hello All

 

There is a "big" bushy Leylandi around 10-15M tall on our boundary but just on the side of the neighbour. We're not on terrible terms but not a great terms either and have already been told that should we wish to cut the branches that extend over our garden we will not have permission to enter the tree.

 

So my main question is if my tree surgeon enters the tree from my garden but then during the process of climbing it and cutting branches that extend on to my side moves "1mm" over their side of the property, we could be sued for trespass?

 

And if the tree surgeon carries gazzilions of pounds of insurance, does any of it give us reassurance we won't end up with a great big battle in the courts if the neighbour decides she wants to battle with us (for the hell of it) ?

 

Thanks a lot in advance for any advice.

I’ve got £10m PL and £10m EL and the thought of using my insurance on a job like this gives me the shivers.

 

I’m asked to do quite a few and always refuse unless agreement with the neighbours can be reached.

 

Life’s too short to get involved in other peoples rows, and to leave trees looking utterly shit, which they always will do.

[Hodge]

I’ve got £10m PL and £10m EL and the thought of using my insurance on a job like this gives me the shivers.
 
I’m asked to do quite a few and always refuse unless agreement with the neighbours can be reached.
 
Life’s too short to get involved in other peoples rows, and to leave trees looking utterly shit, which they always will do.

I'm the same, I can't be bothered with arseholes anymore, people think they can treat use like something they stepped in sometimes and it's usually because of a situation like this. I nearly punched a bloke when we were cutting his trees back off my customers garden. He had agreed to them cutting back to the boundary, however when he started ranting and raving at me for cutting the trees as per the agreement. He then said he would sue me and all the rest I suggested he go away before I do something which I will regret. [emoji23][emoji23][emoji123] and I am not a violent person but sometimes........

[neiln]

I absolutely get the, ' won't get involved' view.  I do get puzzled by the'it'll look shit' view.  Firstly Leyland cypress of and size in a residential garden already look shit and secondly I'm relatively confident the homeowner knows that, they just want their neighbours trespassing tree to stop trespassing.

 

Ladder comments seem scary to me but a scaffold tower isn't much and is a lot safer.

[oldwoodcutter]

I’ve done exactly that in the past, I cut all the overhanging stuff off the neighbours big conifer on my customers side, after he’d been begrudgingly given permission off the owner.

2 weeks later I’m threatened with court action off tree owner for unbalancing it, potentially causing it to fall on his house.

This was a load of old cods of course, but I’d since found out he was some £1000 an hour QC barrister.

He wanted to engage his own contractor to balance it up on his side and I was apparently duty bound to pay for the lot.

I took the problem back to my customer who got out of it somehow but it gave me a few sleepless nights back then I can tell you.

 

 

[daltontrees]

You can't be sued for unbalancing a tree and potentially causing it to fall over. What would be wrong is unbalancing it without giving its owner fair warning that that might cause it to fall over. The tree is encroaching, it has not and never will have a right to be in your airspace and no notice of cutting back to the boundary need be given but as I say at common law a resultant failure and harm or damage could attract liability if the tree owner had no knowledge and oportunity to avoid the failure.

There's one amendment to that. If someone cut a tree purely so that it would fall onto someone else's property, that would be malicious and I believe they could be sued. Personally I think they should.

People deny access for work in these situations for a variety of reasons, it can be bloody-mindendess, it can be the hope that the extra costs and hassle of the work without access will put the neighbour off, it can even be the desire to put the neighbour to the maximum costs, but it's never genuine reasons.

One -off trespass without damage is trivial in the eyes of the law, and if a stem were used briefly for a rope anchor to improve safety I think a court would chuck out a trespass suit.

I'm glad no-one has rolled out the old 'criminal damage' myth on this one.

At court, the law respects obvious rights and reasonable behaviour, and does not concern itself with trivialities.

[john87]

21 hours ago, daltontrees said:

You can't be sued for unbalancing a tree and potentially causing it to fall over. What would be wrong is unbalancing it without giving its owner fair warning that that might cause it to fall over. The tree is encroaching, it has not and never will have a right to be in your airspace and no notice of cutting back to the boundary need be given but as I say at common law a resultant failure and harm or damage could attract liability if the tree owner had no knowledge and oportunity to avoid the failure.

There's one amendment to that. If someone cut a tree purely so that it would fall onto someone else's property, that would be malicious and I believe they could be sued. Personally I think they should.

People deny access for work in these situations for a variety of reasons, it can be bloody-mindendess, it can be the hope that the extra costs and hassle of the work without access will put the neighbour off, it can even be the desire to put the neighbour to the maximum costs, but it's never genuine reasons.

One -off trespass without damage is trivial in the eyes of the law, and if a stem were used briefly for a rope anchor to improve safety I think a court would chuck out a trespass suit.

I'm glad no-one has rolled out the old 'criminal damage' myth on this one.

At court, the law respects obvious rights and reasonable behaviour, and does not concern itself with trivialities.

Yes, i was going to say that trespass is a civil tort, and so they could in theory try to sue you, but as you correctly say; "the law does not concern itself with trifles" and anyway, what would be the point unless they wanted to recover damages from you, problem [for them] being that you cannot sue for damages unless you can show that you have suffered loss [which they cannot do]

 

john.

[Mesterh]

The problem is that the neighbour will probably just stand under the tree giving grief to the contractor if they do trespass if they are tied into the tree. The job won't get finished and the neighbour will have won. The contractor will be out of pocket. The only reasonable way would be to try and prune the tree without crossing the boundary but even then if the neighbour is not happy they can still cause enough grief so the that the job can't go ahead.