Tall Trees

Caranica wrote: »

You have no legal rights here. There have been a number of attempts to bring in legislation about large trees but none have made it past the finish line. You can cut back any overhanging branches (at your cost) but have to offer the cuttings back to the owner. You can't do anything about the height.

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Looking for some help please . The woman who lives behind our house has an absolutely enormous evergreen tree ( and smaller ones too) just over our wall . We had a guy trim a few bits here and she took umbrage at one part of our garden where we cut back our shrubs and she felt we could see into her garden . Her garden is huge , if I go to the wall and stand on tiptoe I can see her garage , at best .
Anyway , the main issue is the really big one . It’s taking light from our garden / house but she isn’t willing to trim it to anything like a more neighbour friendly ( 7 ft or so )level .
Where do we stand on that legally ?
I don’t particularly want to go the legal route but being able to quote the law to her might help - presuming I do have legal rights to do so ?

Yeah, but you're insured against that (presumably).

yes, my comment still stands, 7 ft is a pretty small tree. many people will have larger Christmas trees in their front room..

that's why the op clarified and said he meant m not ft.

If the OP is thinking that a nice cut down size would be 7m then the tree must be what 30-40 feet or more now? To take out a 40 foot high evergreen (they are very very hardy) with any domestic weed killer would need gallons upon gallons and youd never reach the upper parts. its not feasible. If you did kill it youd end up with a dead brown eyesore that would still block most of the light and would be at higher risk of falling.

House insurance companies will want to know if there are any trees that could damage your property. If you answer yes, they will refuse to quote until you submit a report from an arborist.

Never heard of that. And there are trees all around us and all the neighbours. Never heard of anyone being asked about trees when looking for insurance.

OP, that tall trees issue isa as old as the hills. Basically you have no rights.

Only option is to get the neighbor to be a nice neighbor, but that rarely works when people are ignorant enough not to notice tall trees planted beside their neighbors.

A post above reminded me of a friend of mine who went out in the middle of the night and sprayed some sort of weed killer all over the neighbors side of their trees. They went brown and you could see right through them. The neighbor thought they had caught some disease and cut them down a year later.

Another firend from a different part of the country moved into a house where those lellandi trees were about 50ft high at the back wall of his garden. Blocked out all the sun. He was going to cut them first thing, but the neighbor behind had the same trees anyway so if he cut his, theirs were still in the way.

But the neogbor called in and said if she cut her trees would he leave his, so they both had privacy. He said yes. So she cut them (and got back about 30ft of her back garden, which was the reason she cut them). A few weeks later he cut his down and she called in ranting about privacy and that he promised not to cut them. He said to her "When i saw how lovely all that extar space you got back in you garden looked, i thought i would copy you". She was livid.

I had that very issue with my wife's family home about 12 months ago; difference being there was over 50 large Leylandi along the boundary.

I called to neighbour and had a chat explaining the risk to house, and my doubts over who's insurance would cover it if trees fell. I also pointed out what a load of hassle legally and insurance wise it would be even if insurance companies paid up fully.

He had a doubt in his head about how covered he was after that.

All the trees were down 6 weeks later