a bit of advice for a client if possible

[Hodge]

I've had a similar situation, street tree on a bit of land no one claims they own, all the houses along the street cut the grass on no mans land infrint of there property, some people prune the trees some don't. This lady wants it gone. I spoke to TO and he said there is no TPO or ca and you could use the adopted land thing, however he also said if the tree did come down then you could get in trouble so best speak to the town council rather than district TO. I got his number and gave it to the lady and let her sort it all out. This took 10 mins whilst I was pruning a tree in her garden. She has now been to 4 site meetings and has been in dozens of conversations etc and still got no where. I'm glad I got out when I did. My advice, give her the councils phone number and let her sort it.

[Gary Prentice]

Hodge, your situations a little different where the tree ownership is unknown. In the OP's situation, the tree is a highway tree.

 

I've had a few similar circumstances as yours. It's often where the original developer has fenced trees out of a plot and created un-owned trees within the development. Theoretically, the land hasn't been include in the subdivision of building plots and still belong to the owner/developer of the bigger/original parcel of land.

 

Another situation is the land common to an estate. The developer pays the LA a sum to maintain verges and planting not including in individual plots in perpetuity. Along the line, the LA forget the agreement exists, think that they are caring for land not in their ownership and stop maintaining it because they have insufficient funds.

 

When ownership can't be identified, I've been advised to reasonably advertise that works are going to be done, in the hope that someone will step up and accept responsibility/liability. This is when trees have become dangerous, but aren't likely to affect the public at large, so the council can't/won't invoke their Miscellaneous Provisions ability.

 

Having spent many hours searching the land registry and then trying to trace builders that ceased to exist years ago, I now tend to steer clear of these type of jobs.

Edited March 17, 2015 by Gary Prentice

[oakum]

Opening post says that the next door neighbours wall is 'begging to be lifted', not is being lifted.

 

Light structure damage would introduce a whole new perspective.

 

I translated begging as beginning perhaps OP could confirm - sorry if the roots were begging