Its finally my time to bring a paint drawing to treelaw. I have been waiting for this day all my life and I'm more pissed than I probably have legal standing, but here goes. Cue experts.

Our local power company entered my property I assume today to cut down a tree and prune another. I received a muffled call yesterday about tree removal that stated a dead tree would be removed within the next few weeks and another pruned due to overhanging power lines. It was completely unstated whether this was on my property or not and since we get service calls related to traffic (we're in a canyon) I figured it was about that. The tree they felled is set back about 40 feet from the opposite side of the road from the lines, no clue how it could be overhanging them.

I live rural and I'm a former mtb racer. The kicker is that I discovered this when I was hurtling down my backyard trails at mach jesus to find they left this widowmaker strewn everywhere in my runout.

Curious if any experts can clarify what kind of execution is reasonable on the part of power companies in OR (because this was total shite and I'm not looking forward to cleaning up their mess) and also any relevant laws in ORS I should be clued in to with regard to notice and permits. I'm not completely upset that they may have removed a tree that could be removed for safety -- we have plenty of trees. I'm unhappy with their notice and obliviously dangerous execution and want to hold their feet to the fire over doing proper work on another person's land.

Any other advice? I’d love to be able to get compensated for this irreplaceable tree

I know it’s not that big of a deal in this subreddit, but I am sad. This is our first house and we put time into it. My land goes all the way to their driveway. The fence is mine and the grass/trees are also ours. We take care of the easement as it is considered our property. One of the trees is butchered and the other one was limbed for no reason. I feel it is not coming back and honestly looks crappy.

What is another tree I can put there that is like an umbrella type?

I am going to try and remedy with the owner calmly but I want to know what I can suggest him to plant. Pictures are before and after. (ADT sign is their side)

I’m just sad.

Everything was pretty symmetrical before.

I’m in NC.

Hello and thanks in advance!

My neighbour sent me the is video and is threatening legal action as he’s afraid my tree will fall onto his house. The tree is tall but my wife loves them and doesn’t want to cut them down, part of the reason we bought this house to renovate was the trees.

So I’m wondering how much of a hazard does this look to be? If it is a hazard is the only option to cut it down? Legally what options would I have if it fell?

How to save a tree from the chopping block last minute? We have a birch that provides privacy to our unit and the HOA wants to cut it down in 2 days despite all affected neighbors protesting this decision. We were not notified during any previous HOA meetings. HOA says the reason for cutting is to replace the concrete of the walkway nearby but it should be far enough away not to warrant cutting in my opinion. Unfortunately can’t provide pictures right now as I am not home. This is in CA btw. Is there any quick legal action we can take to prevent this on such short notice?

Warning: you will be infuriated by this article. Hoarding wealth is truly an antisocial mental illness. ​
Is there a tree civil rights lawyer that can help??

https://archive.is/20261014163815/https://www.27east.com/southampton-press/news/environment/article_b89667b2-0096-42d4-a2b4-b6996b96a4ed.html

So I live on Ridge Road in Hales Corners WI. The village wants to rebuild the road. In addition to rebuilding the road, they want to install ditches and culverts along both sides of the road throughout, but this will require by their estimations removing 105 mature trees by our counts, It’s more like 140 in total. Not only that the five houses that have horseshoe driveways on the road will not be getting their horseshoe driveway rebuilt. My house is probably the most affected not only do all my trees in my front yard get chopped down they want to shift the road into my front yard and I’m also losing my horseshoe driveway. Me and a group of neighbors are trying to fight back and come to some agreement with the village. Any help or input is much appreciated, outside of legal advice (we have retained a lawyer). I’ve already had a arborist out to document and evaluate my trees. Please check out the neighborhood Facebook group page Save Ridge Road. Right now we’re trying to show the village that people take this topic seriously.

Hi. I live in Florida and we were just impacted by Hurricane Isaias. We had a company out to cut up downed trees, and they apparently weren’t paying attention to what we asked and also cut down a live, undamaged tree that we wanted to keep. We’re pretty upset, we lost enough trees to the storm, and this was a largish oak tree that provided shade, the last one in that part of the yard. I don’t expect a ton of compensation, but we had prepaid for the work, it wasn’t cheap, and this is a fairly large and well known company in our area so not just some random pop up for the hurricane. I just want to know what, if anything, I should expect from them when I call to talk about it.

Hi all,

tricky one here, I've exhausted my search online and the council are no help unfortunately we are in Wales visiting my parents, the neighbouring woodland is privately owned and the owner is insisting its left to u/fallow' however this tree in the pictures has been without leaves all year and even the ivy/ moss / vine has started to die off.

It is overhanging the boundary quite a lot so we had intended on getting the branches cut back however I think that this tree could start to pose a risk, we are on an exposed coastal location and last year were without power for 4 days due to fallen trees effecting power lines.

Could someone gifted with more wisdom or knowledge than me advise on the rights my parents have in these cases where a tree has been neglected and is at risk of causing damage.

When we moved into our house four years ago, my very first conversation with the neighbor consisted of him complaining about the 3 Callery pear trees that are between our properties. These trees are on my property planted by the previous owners of the house, but there are some branches that reach over onto his side.

He considers these trees messy, and resents having to clean up leaves. He said that prior to our buying the house, he had actually gone so far as to purchase poison to kill the trees, but that he had decided not to go through with that at the time. He repeatedly asked me to remove the trees.

Fast-forward a couple of years and I finally made it clear, very politely, that I had many, many other priorities for my time and my money than cutting down three perfectly healthy trees, but that if he wanted to pay to have them properly removed, I would be open to that. After that, our formerly very friendly interactions ceased, and he pretty much stopped talking to me altogether.

This spring, my wife and I noticed that the leaves on his side of the tree were withering up and dying and falling off. The trees themselves generally seemed OK, and we didn’t do anything about it then, because frankly we were just amused that the biggest effect was that it killed his grasp beneath the trees.

This occurred months ago, probably in May, and the photo above shows how some of the affected branches look today, with some leaves, regrown, and some dead materials still evident.

It’s way too long a story to tell, but this situation has now escalated into a full-blown feud and campaign of harassment on his part, and I am in the process of seeking and restraining order.

What are the laws about this activity (for context I am in Maryland)? Is it too late to do anything about this now? For what it’s worth I do have an email from him from February in which he complains about them. What should I know going forward?

Las Vegas, Nevada. My next door neighbor kept getting letters from our HOA saying he needed to maintain his palm tree. There were years of dead fronds. Rather than maintain the tree, he decided to have the whole tree cut down. It was a healthy, 50 foot tree. I was working from home when I heard a loud crash in my kitchen. I went outside to see what was going on on and I see a guy cutting down the tree and allowing big, green palm fronds to fall 50 feet down onto my roof. I told the guys they had to stop having the fronds land on my roof. My neighbor came out and was mad at me for being mad and told me I couldn't tell his crew what to do. I said I'm not risking my roof being damaged or my sky light smashed due to their laziness. He told me I was overreacting and IF my property got damaged, that's what insurance is for.

Hey guys, i live in georgetown Ontario Canada and came home today to a white stake on my front lawn (the city portion next to the street). I already have a tree on my lawn and i do not want another tree as i plan on doing a interlock or concrete walkway/driveway extension in the future. Is there anything i can do to protest the location? I dont care much for another tree to shade my driveway or procure leaves in fall for me to rake. Just looking to gain some info if you’ve had this happen to you in the past thank you!

tl;dr: Wealthy neighbor ignored warnings about a massive 200-year-old "hazard" tree and lied about due diligence. It fell, crushing my rental property -- my tenant would've died if she were at home. Aloof neighbor fails to understand the concept of insurance in a rather comprehensive way. 

In 2019, I asked my neighbor who bought the house next door about the health of the massive 200-year-old pecan tree towering over our block. He told me he had "multiple arborists" check it out, and I took him at his word. 

In 2023, the tree fell, sending about 40 tons of lumber onto my property. It split exactly where predicted [see photo 2]. It would have killed my tenant if she had been in her bedroom. A few months later, I learned from *another* neighbor that the tree had been arborist-designated a "hazard" well before the neighbor (who I'll call "Michael," since I didn't have to sign an NDA) bought the house. He learned of its "hazard" status, and he misrepresented his due diligence to me. 

Due to the age of our house, we had an insurer of last resort, so our insurance cut us short. I spend over 400 hours doing demo and the rebuild myself, digging my tenant's jewelry out of the rubble with bandaged hands after dozens of hours looking for particularly sentimental family heirlooms. [see photo 3]

Meanwhile, Michael and his wife (who had a 20-year age gap but no full-time jobs) were engaged in a continuous home renovation (since 2018). While I was sweating and bleeding and dealing with tons of debris, Michael converted a van for "van life" -- in a display of finances and leisure time that I didn't have... 

In the immediate aftermath, Michael gave me 3-4 hours of labor. During that time, he also helped himself to spare lumber and building materials I had stored in my shed -- a shed that his tree had obliterated. Because I didn't yet know about his negligence, I even helped him carry some of the lumber to his yard. 

He even asked if he could salvage some of the pecan tree trunk. I consented, again not yet knowing about the extent of his negligence and deception. He quickly discovered the wood was entirely too decayed to be salvaged... which shouldn't have surprised him since he knew of the tree's "hazardous" condition and state of decay. 

It took months to prove this wasn't an "act of God" but one of gross negligence. Michael's insurer, State Farm, ignored me for 10 consecutive months. In one blatant delay tactic, State Farm emailed me claiming they couldn't open JPG files, and they asked me to physically mail in a flash drive instead. [see photo 4]. 

It required an unusual amount of resourcefulness and 150 hours of claims documentation, prepared as if I were headed to jury trial, but I eventually tracked down the supervisor of the woman ignoring me at State Farm. 

A year after the tree fell, Michael texted me to ask for a meeting to "apologize." I lawfully recorded all 30 minutes of that conversation, which lacked the structure, phrasing, or sincerity of an "apology." 

Michael admitted he "should've had the tree cut," but then attacked my character because he thought I "wasn't nice" to him when I finally learned of and confronted him about his deception. He and his wife actually tried to maintain that their insurance "wasn't a remedy," thinking that they get to unilaterally decide what insurance does and doesn't cover. 

He even tried to stack his 3-4 hours of "help" against my hundreds of hours of labor, whining that he "broke a tool" while helping me -- a ridiculous thing to say to someone tens of thousands of dollars in the hole. When I asked him to proide the receipts from the "multiple arborists" he claimed investigated the tree, he agreed in the recording, but completely stonewalled me during the settlement process. 
State Farm ultimately settled for $60,000 and I hope my insurer subrogated what they had already paid me on top of that. They also settled with my tenants and other neighbor. It compensated me for every scrap of time I had to expend due to his negligence (including claims time), but not at a rate I would've accepted in the August heat. 

Michael hasn't spoken to me in the two years since his recorded non-apology. So, to observe the anniversary, I sent him a 3,000-word email quoting his own "apology" back to him, as closure and a final word I'd been denied. I even kindly asked him to rebuild his fence (the ony damage he sustained) as tall and opaque as code allows. He hasn't responded. 

He pulled some classic DARVO tactics on me during his apology, but I made him repeat this phrase: "you are not the victim here" just because I used some bad words. 

Don't trust aloof artist types at their own word for things, especially those who have been shrouded in privilege their whole lives.

r/treelaw has been popping up on my feed for years during this saga, and I'm glad I can finally share my story. Someone could've died from his negligence, and I'm eternally grateful that the only thing to die was my relationship with my neighbor.

As I signed in my email to him, Millie Jackson simply says it better than I do. 

Last time I was inside his house, he told me he “keeps his blinds closed so insurance and code enforcement don’t know what I’m doing in here.” I really need to weaponize that and will take ideas from my treelaw friends!

Do you think it is worth standing up for trees at the expense of personal relationships?

The reality is that cutting down trees can be controversial. My experience concerns public trees. There is someone who wants them cut down, claiming that they are dangerous and could potentially kill children (those were their exact words). However, this person may also have a private interest in removing them, as they use the public space as a car park for their business.

These trees have no obvious problems, apart from falling leaves and the occasional branch falling, most of which are small. It is also true that there is a house quite close to them, across a road.

I attended a local government meeting where they simply decided that the trees should be cut down. In my opinion, they accepted everything one person said without making any rational assessment of the situation. I contacted an environmental organisation so that it could become involved in the official decision-making process.

My local government seemed to get scared and never proceeded with making the decision official. Now, there are several people who seem to almost hate me—or at least, that is how I feel. I just wanted them to provide proper arguments and base their decision on at least some expert assessment.

It was never personal for me. I just couldn't stand the idea of people deciding to cut down these trees without proper consideration. I was also told by the person who wanted the trees removed that if the trees hurt someone, they would come after me.

I am not cut out for this kind of situation. And honestly, most of the people living in the other houses don't really seem to care.

Sometimes I even ask myself: Why on earth do I care so much? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Should I just go along?

My neighbour has a large garden. They have built a two storey playhouse for their daughter out of wood about a metre away from our shared boundary and next to a protected 250 year old oak tree. A bough fell off the tree and landed in their garden. It didn’t hit the playhouse but it wasn’t far away. The neighbour has said the tree doesn’t look healthy. It does. I’ve had a tree surgeon to visit and am now having a full tree report. The tree has a TPO and both tree experts agree it looks very healthy. I’m pretty frustrated by the expense this is going to be. I know it’s their garden, but who in their right mind puts a playhouse under their neighbour’s massive tree when there are plenty of other places they could have put it? I’m stressed out about the potential costs I am going to incur, and the potential responsibility of causing an accident. What would you advise please?

Hurricane knocked three trees from two houses behind me into our yard, and uprooted our oak tree into our next door neighbor’s yard. We are in Florida and I’ve always known it to be the law that whatever portion falls on your property, you are responsible for. My neighbor is demanding I remove my tree from his yard. I have four trees down in my yard to take care of and isn’t the portion in his yard his responsibility? He is insisting it is not and is threatening a lawsuit.

A federal judge erupted at Trump administration officials Monday over the removal of hundreds of trees from a historic Washington, D.C., golf course, accusing the government of destroying its credibility with the court.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes repeatedly raised her voice during a hearing over work at East Potomac Golf Links, where the National Park Service has begun removing trees as part of the administration’s renovation plans.

Reyes, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, said she had repeatedly instructed the government to notify her before major demolition work proceeded.

The removal of more than 500 trees without adequate notice "has cost the government all of its credibility" in the case, Reyes said, per multiple accounts from those at the hearing who said Reyes raised her voice and become visibly frustrated.

"I trusted you all not to do precisely what you have done," Reyes said, adding that she was "at a total loss" to understand the government’s actions.

My family member has an upslope neighbor with a big leaning eucalyptus tree. The neighbors are ready to remove it, but want to use my family member's downslope yard for access and suggested they wouldn't remove the tree otherwise.

Is there a standard document my family would need to protect themselves and their property against any accidental property damage during removal? Do they need a lawyer to help make this document? We are in CA. They have basic insurance (FAIR plan), so I don't think the homeowners would cover any damage if it happened. The tree company is reputable and insured.

It's a tall eucalyptus tree they want to get cleared before el nino storms roll in.

(I know this is not the place for legal advice...we just didn't really know what normal practice is here. They want the tree removed but also protect their house)

Looks like treelaw may get a run at the Supreme Court if this continues to escalate like the ballroom.

I’m in North Carolina and trying to get a realistic sense of whether this is worth continuing into deeper legal territory.

My rear neighbor was clearing for a fence and severed a large root from a mature American elm on my property. I have a survey, property-line markers, photos of the root/cut area, and he later acknowledged that he had crossed the property line and said he “should have popped the line first.”

There is one text that may matter. Before the damage, he told me he was going to clear along the property line and “remove a root that’s in the way.” I responded positively to the overall fence discussion with “Awesome sounds good.” I did not understand that to mean he was going to cross onto my property and cut a major structural root from this elm. He also noted in that text that he would use the survey stakes for reference.

I hired a consulting/master arborist. His written report says the tree is a 22” DBH American elm, about 50’ tall, with no visible decline at the time of inspection. He documented an approximately 8” root severed near the base, concluded that the tree lost a large portion of its functional root system and a major anchoring point, and said failure within three years is probable without intervention. He also states there is no treatment path that guarantees survival. Recommended mitigation includes dormant-season crown reduction, bark beetle prevention, fungicide treatment, soil care and annual monitoring.

The three-year treatment plan is about $2,760 before pruning.

We initially tried to resolve this without litigation.
First, we discussed me buying roughly an 18’4” × 60’ strip of his rear property so I could control the affected root zone long term. I would pay him for the land and, once everything was completed, I would assume the future risk if the tree later failed. His attorney advised against conveying the land because of possible lender/marketability issues. I understood that concern.

My attorney then suggested an easement instead. The neighbor would keep ownership, move the fence back about 18’4”, and grant me access over that area to maintain/protect the elm and root zone. He would contribute about $3,000 toward treatment/pruning, and I would release him from future responsibility if the tree later died, needed removal, stump grinding or replacement. I texted those basic terms to him after we discussed them and he agreed.

After that, the attorneys began communicating. His attorney sent a letter acknowledging the damage and indicating he wanted a second arborist opinion. My attorney responded that we were not aware the agreement had broken down and asked them to get back in touch once that second opinion came through. I have not heard any update from that process since.

Now the fence contractor is actively installing the fence on the original property line, not at the setback we had discussed. The contractor told me the neighbor instructed them to stay entirely on his side of the property line, but he was not given any special instructions about protecting the elm/root zone.

I understand that he can put a fence on his own land. My concern is that additional roots could be damaged during installation after everyone already knows this tree has suffered a major structural root injury.

At this point I’m trying to understand whether this is still something worth pursuing more aggressively through counsel, or whether the economics of litigation tend to make tree cases like this a bad trade even when the facts are fairly strong.

My main questions are:

How much does the earlier “remove a root” / “awesome sounds good” text hurt me on consent?
How much does his later acknowledgment that he crossed the line and should have established it first help me?

If more roots are damaged during the fence installation now, does that materially change the legal situation?

Is the easement approach we discussed a realistic way to protect the root zone long term, or more so was this a fair compromise for future liability release?

For people who have actually handled NC tree cases, is this the kind of claim that is economically worth pushing into litigation, or do attorney/expert costs usually eat up the recovery?

I originally thought attorneys would only be needed to draft and record a settlement we had already worked out. Now it feels like this may be shifting toward actual litigation, and I’m trying to get a realistic sense of whether that makes sense. Let me know if you need me to clarify anything.

Edit: I posted the text thread in the comments as I realize it’s what’s driving most of the discussion.

Edit2: one thought I’ve had from those very strongly believing my text was consent for cutting the root. If we had established that we were working on our side, noting the boundary markers, why would you automatically assume it was permission to cut a root from one of my trees? I think it could be implied that he needed to remove a root, on his side, from one of his trees.

We had a huge oak directly on the property line with our next-door neighbor in NJ. About 18 months before it fell, an arborist inspected it because of some dead limbs. He said it was unhealthy but still alive and could be managed through pruning, so we had it professionally pruned and split that cost 50/50 with the neighbor. Our neighbor actually strongly insisted at the time that we opt for pruning rather than removal. And to be clear, at no point did any arborist or professional indicate that the tree was a hazard.

A few weeks ago, during a major Nor’easter, the tree uprooted and fell entirely away from our house, across the neighbor’s yard and into other properties. Our property had no damage.

The neighbor hired a tree company for about $3,500. They had initially expected us to split the cost 50/50 with them, "because that's how we handled it last time", when we had it pruned. We pushed back, stating that they'd need to be primarily responsible for the cleanup in their own yard, per state law around how fallen trees/limbs are handled. We offered $750 as a goodwill contribution because the remaining root ball near our garage was supposed to be included in the scope of the work. The neighbors accepted our offer. Then after starting, the contractor suddenly wanted another $3,500 to deal with the stump/root ball.

Now the neighbor is saying the remaining stump/root ball is basically our responsibility and that we should arrange removal.

Based on my interpretation of our property survey, aerial photos, and what’s visible on the ground:

• The remaining stump/trunk appears to be mostly or entirely on the neighbor’s side.
• Maybe 30–40% of the root plate, mostly dirt/roots, extends onto our side.
• Some of it also reaches toward another neighbor’s property.
• It is not blocking anything we need to use, and our garage foundation appears fine.

The neighbor wants it gone quickly because she wants to install a new shed. I honestly don’t care if it stays there indefinitely, as long as it isn’t a hazard to my garage. I’ve already told her I’m not going to hire or manage the removal, though I’m willing to cooperate with reasonable access if needed.

My main question: Absent some actual expert finding that the remaining root plate is dangerous, do I have any obligation to remove it or pay for its removal?

Am I missing anything, or is this basically a “stop managing it and let the neighbor deal with the portion affecting her property” situation?