arb culture

I know this is 'hypothetical', and hence I'll doubtless come unstuck, but I thought the tree remained in the ownership, and ultimate responsibility, of the land upon which is was 'set' or planted.

 

In other words even if it encroaches the boundary at some later date, it still remained the responsibility of the landowner upon whose land it originated. I acknowledge in saying this it doesn't align with Charles's summation (hence simply ignore me ) but it does seem to make at least some sense...I would suggest.

 

In practice, one would hope adjoining land owners would sensibly discuss the matter and agree a solution.

 

There...time to go back to the main forum n seek out some H&S or compliance stuff now...PHEW!

 

Cheers..

Paul

Hi Paul,

I totally agree with your logic - and I always thought similar.

But then why does Mynors seem to say something different and far more complex? Have we misunderstood him?

Weird - and perhaps one for the lawyers I think.

I'm going back to looking at trees now.

a bark spray application of Mono- and di-potassium salts of Phosphorous Acid (Phosphite) with an organosilicate like Pentra-bark works.

Cool, I'd not heard of that one. Thanks

On the other hand, the natural tree on one man's land encroaches with hair-thin roots which unabated thicken till their encroachment becomes nuisance. The law on this is clear, it doesn't start to be jointly owned when it grows up, it always has been one man's or the other's.

I think we are all agreed that where the base of a tree is in one persons land but the roots or branches cross into another then there is likely to be only one owner of a tree. The disagreement comes from what happens when the base of a tree straddles a boundary.

Some of us are under the impression that a tree with a base straddling a boundary has joint ownership, some think this is wrong and that there can be only one owner.

I've provided some citations (sourced from Charles Mynors book) to show that trees growing with a base that crosses a boundary have joint ownership.

I'd be absolutely delighted if someone could provide some case law or legislation that shows that this view is wrong (or even questionable).

I also wonder if Scottish and English law contain some differences on this matter.

No but I don't think its needed

 

There is plenty on trespass and encroachment is usually handled that way.

But if the tree is jointly owned then it might be that there cannot be any trespass or encroachment.

Which is why I responded to the original query that they should sort out who owns the tree before they go any further.

My bad, you didn't say that but that is the quote you were defending.

 

The point stands that there isn't a precedent that says that but there is loads of precedent for the trespass option

Ah sorry - I didn't mean to defend that quote, I was just trying to be helpful in providing some case law citations for you. With these citations it's possible for a person to check the matter out for themselves.

After reading Mynors' book and checking out the case law myself, I do now believe that what I was taught about there only ever being one owner of a boundary tree is wrong. But I am not a lawyer.

Do you know any case law showing that there can only ever be one owner of a boundary tree?

So when you said

 

What you meant was, in the opinion of the author of this book, which while acknowledging the mans depth of knowledge isn't quite the same thing.

 

Its not safe to call it law unless there is a direct case law to support

Woah, hang on a minute - I didn't say,

"Its pretty straight forward and is backed up in law".

Please don't misrepresent me

Humour me. I can only think of two ways in which QTRA (the system) would arise in discussion; in a discussion on the facts or in a discussion of the merits of those facts. In either discussion, there is the potential for dispute - for example Acer may disagree with your assessment of what constitutes a fact about QTRA and would be in a position to complain that you have misrepresented the system on a public forum. Similarly it is not too hard to imagine that he may also disagree with your opinion on them.

 

In either event it would be unfair of me to to prevent him from responding - just as it would be if I prevented your comments on QTRA from being heard elsewhere on the site.

 

So I can keep the thread on track provided we don't enter that territory or we can just allow arbtalk to do its thing and you'll have to put up with the involvement of one or more critical voices and derailing by people who like the idea but will never help you move it forward beyond a protest against what's there already.

 

With regard to your caveat - wait til you've posted something that needs it!

Tony,

I'm totally with you on this - and I am very grateful indeed for your offer of a free space to discuss ideas without interference. So I ask others - please let's not discuss any other methods or ideas other than our own.

As for me - someone has, quite rightly, warned about copyright matters, and I thank them for that. However, this has raised a couple of questions for me, so I am going to discuss my ideas with my solicitor before I go any further on this. I'll let you know how I get on, but it won't be for another week.

I don't predict any legal problems, but I'm not a lawyer so I better check first. Obviously, I should have checked this out before starting this thread - sorry

Cheers Tony,

Let's try and keep it positive people

You might want to dwell on the first two words of Mynors 3.2.3...."Perhaps paradoxically..." for it's just not that simple - one owner or two? There may be a difference between "ownership" and "rights". If the tree is owned by one neighbour with no dispute the roots of that tree can cause a nuisance to the next neighbour - the tree roots belong to the tree owner. If the tree is considered to be under joint ownership, possibly as a result of it growing across the boundary line the affected party might find it difficult to claim the tree was causing a nuisance if he also claimed part ownership or was told he was the part-owner. Who owns the tree roots growing under the ground of the affected party if the tree grows over the boundary? Surely ownership of the tree roots can't suddenly change as the tree stem grows over the magical boundary line?

Hi Jon,

Nice to hear from you - your mortgage report course that I attended is still giving me food for thought (in a good way).

Mynors does say that the situation is more straightforward where a tree is close to a boundary but not on it. He does indeed seem to be saying that ownership magically changes when a tree base straddles a boundary.

BUT he also cautions that the position regarding the duties and rights of jointly owned boundary trees is not yet entirely clear, and that there might be room for further litigation to clarify the rights and duties of those concerned.

Have you had any experiences you are able to share which could throw some light on this?

Hello all,

This thread was set up to discuss the possibility of creating an open source quantified risk assessment system for the benefit of everyone - arbs, tree owners, private business, charities etc. Please don't engage with the haters.

I would suggest to the moderators of this site that any further attempts to attack the personal or professional standing of contributors of this thread are treated as 'flaming' and are immediately removed.

Thanks

Probably got too much thinking time and so am posting more frequently than the typical lack of feedback suggests is worthwhile...

Sorry to hear about your injury - I hope it gets better soon.

Don't take a lack of feedback as a suggestion that your posts are not worthwhile. I know I've been lurking rather than actively participating for a long time, but I find your posts interesting and often thought provoking, I'd be surprised if I was alone

Any citations for that?

It's at section 3.2 of Charles Mynors' book The law of trees forests and hedges.

Among the cases he cites are Lemon v Webb 1894, Heatherington v Gault 1905, Richardson v Jay 1960, and Stanton v Jones (unreported) 1994.

It would seem that many of us tree people have been mis-educated regarding boundary tree ownership. I have trained at several colleges/universities, and, as far as I can remember, they have all taught me that boundary trees belong to one person or another but not both.

So I'm very grateful to Charles Mynors book for setting me straight.

Trophic or troph as opposed to Phyte one consumes SAProtrophicly, the other produces its own energy-epiphyte or partialy like a hemiparasitic mistletoe.

 

Fungi feed off things, plants feed themselves

I was reading up on this and just found out about something I didn't know before - there are plants called myco-heterotrophs that are parasitic on honey fungus!

There's also something called mixotrophy whereby mycorrhizal associations get a little weird.

How cool is nature

Cool, thanks for the heads up treeseer. I'm even more interested now.

...a picture paints a thousand words yeah

 

Joking apart the consultants scheme is currently undergoing some changes too so "watch this space."

 

Cheers..

Paul

Tee hee, sorry I couldn't resist.

Excellent news on the consultant scheme updates - I will watch out for that with interest, thanks.

I did mean it about the contractor scheme though - it sounds really good these days.

Hi Paul,

I've been hearing good things about the approved contractor scheme - nice work.

I'm looking forward to the day that you sort out to registered consultant scheme too

The only peer reviewed version of QTRA that I am aware of appeared in a 2005 edition of the ISA's Journal of Arboriculture, every page of this article clearly states "©2005 International Society of Arboriculture".

I thought that was interesting.

Cool, thanks Paul.

Sorry, I got the wrong journal - I meant that the only peer reviewed version of QTRA seems to be copyrighted by the ISA.

That's quite interesting.

Update: I have been informed that Potassium phosphite can be used to help infected trees if it is used as a fertiliser.

Does anyone know more about this?

Acer,

You do raise a valid question about copyright. I was wondering who actually owns the copyright to QTRA?

Presumably later versions are copyrighted by QTRA Ltd, but the only peer reviewed version of QTRA that I'm aware of appears to be copyrighted by AB Academic Publishers.

Anyway, this is an aside - what I've come up with so far is not like QTRA, so we can all relax.

Hi Acer,

Thank you for your encouragement, and for your thoughts.

James

Hello all,

I've been scratching my head about quantifying risks from tree for years and years now, and I'm not really happy with what's out there at the moment for all sorts of reasons.

Therefore, I was wondering if anyone would be interested in getting together to create a quantified tree risk assessment method that's open to all.

No hidden calculations, no unexplained arbitrary numbers, no mystical mathematical methods, no members only discussion forums...

I've done a lot of work on this already but I don't want it to be my thing - ideally I'd like it to be everyone's thing.

Cool, good idea

Thanks David,

Verticillium certainly matches the description I've given - but I still don't think this is the culprit.

Pictures would be helpful - give me a couple of days and I'll go and get some to show you