Jon Heuch

I suggest you don't give any more legal advice - cutting down a protected tree will lead to a criminal offence; tort involves injuries between two members of the public - a civil matter.

The situation between insurance and legal liability is different. Typically a houseowner may have two different insurance policies - one for contents and one for his/her own property. They cover different things, and of course some people have both with the same company. The property insurance covers just that - your property; in many cases the shed, walls etc are not covered by this, but may be for example if subsidence affects both main property and shed/walls. If your tree falls over and damages YOUR property the property insurer may pay for repair to YOUR property but not neighbours. Your contents insurance typically has a third party liability aspect - but it will depend on the nature of the policy. If the property owner has no contents insurance he has no third party insurance. It is this insurance that covers claims from subsidence from neighbours, just as it covers claims for trees falling over and damaging neighbour's property. It has nothing to do with forseeability or negligence and the policy may be invalid if negligence could be proven i.e. the tree owner should have done something and thus the insurer states that the owner is not insured for that peril. As for legal liability, I once interviewed a property owner whose garage (& car) was demolished by an estate owned tree (large lime) that fell in the 1987 storm (i.e. the tree was on the edge of the estate and of little concern to the estate owner). The estate owner refused to have anything to do with it and told the old man to arrange for the tree to be removed by themselves, at their own expense. Such tree owners do exist! 3 days at least he was stuck in his house before he could get anyone to look at it. A tree owner has not duty to invoke his insurance, but if he fails to inform an insurer of a risk and then later attempts to make a claim he is likely to be sent packing. So the above tree owner might think "act of god" - I can ignore, only to find a claim against him once the facts are gathered...which the insurance company will walk away from. So such an approach is risky.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tree-preservation-orders-guidance Tony's link is to the public booklet, not the Blue Book. It comes in two parts - the old one and the addendum

) the LA will write back and say please identify the tree - read T&CP Act 1990 211(3)(a) "that he served notice of his intention to do the act in question (with sufficient particulars to identify the tree) on the local planning authority in whose area the tree is or was situated". A basic aspect of this is to give the address at which the tree is located - and if there is more than one tree at a particular address then one would need to identify each tree on which work is planned. If one were to list, say, 100 properties and identify 100 trees - one in each property (or some combination) and include the tree you wanted to cut down then you would present the LA with a problem that they could only resolve (as in preventing any of the trees' removal) with a TPO. ii) if you have identified the tree then your strategy seems to have no merit - a similarly listed TPO would cover it - in the circumstances an Area TPO could be justified; if you have not then you have no defence, and the Council may or may not point this out in a letter before you cut the tree down.

You'll probably guarantee a large legal bill for the tree surgeon when they/you get prosecuted! i) the LA will write back and say please identify the tree - read T&CP Act 1990 211(3)(a) "that he served notice of his intention to do the act in question (with sufficient particulars to identify the tree) on the local planning authority in whose area the tree is or was situated" ii) if you have identified the tree then your strategy seems to have no merit; if you have not then you have no defence, and the Council may or may not point this out in a letter before you cut the tree down.

i) do you have professional indemnity insurance and does your insurer know that they are covering you for writing reports? If no to either the little bit of extra money you may get from writing a report may be gobbled up some time later by the legal bills if things go wrong. Is the risk worth it? ii) be clear on what advice you are being asked for. Clarify it, write it down and pass it back to your client for their agreement. Are you confident that a) you can provide that advice and b) if you passed your report in front of another consultant they would agree with you (in broad terms)? That includes what you don't write in your report just as much as what you do, so omissions from your report can be just as important as anything you commit to paper. ii) what are the risks if you get it wrong? how bad could it get? The less letters you have after your name the less seriously you will be taken and the less likely you are to be sued so you might get away with it....there is logic in this argument but the explanation is too long to write it out here. Just a few things to think about! Jon

AA, ISA, CAS, RFS, ICF...and if you do other things there are other trade and professional bodies to join....BALI, IEEM etc etc. You could spend significant sums keeping abreast with them all. Some competition is good but few of the "tree" organisations are of a sufficient size to provide a complete range of services needed. The AA/ISA overlap is perhaps the most obvious area where there is some room for consolidation...something that is easier to say than achieve to date. Not through lack of trying. The two bodies need to be given clear feedback from members as to what members want. A forum such is this (open, transparent) is a useful means for helping this process. Jon

First time here but yes, we are listening and others have been made aware of comments made both on this thread and others. Feedback, positive or negative, is always welcome but if it's criticism that's offered, it's useful to make it constructive criticism i.e. rather than just stating a problem, try to identify a way forward or solution. Jon Heuch, Director/Trustee AA:wave: