Insurance or advice on heave removing Ash

[SWEssie]

I wonder if I might get some advice please! 

 

We have a really large old Ash on our boundary and we want to take it out. It is in south London clay - we're concerned about heave, and it's very close to a neighbour's property and this neighbour is rather.... difficult. If so much as a chip in her paintwork appears in the next 5 years I fully expect she'll hold us to blame, so we wanted to get some sort of insurance against basically, her claiming that our removing the tree caused issue to her house.

 

We really don't want to get a house survey that says there is subsidence as we don't want the insurance or saleablity hit, and we're planning works in the next year or so that would reinforce the house regardless.

 

I understand from talking to some arboriculturalists that we can't get a tree survey that says "this shouldn't cause heave" but I wanted to know if there was anything like indemnity insurance or something that we could get for protection in case it did cause heave or like a survey like for party wall?

 

Thank you!

[Mark J]

You need soil analysis/site investigations to determine the heave potential. 

If it has ash dieback disease it will most likely be dead in a few years.

[daltontrees]

I may be wrong but as far as I know there can't be any liabiity in nuisance or negligence for heave on a neighbour's property. I mean, in theory there could conceptually be liability in very particular circumstances, but I have never heard of it or seen it mentioned as an insurable risk.