Bought a small holding the owners are chopping down the trees.

TPO's are mostly applicable to urban trees, Felling Licences to rural ones

Exactly - and what other damage/sabotage will happen. If there is a resident sibling, they may find a way to put off any buyers to force the others to let them stay.

This!

I’m not sure I’d want to proceed if I was your friend. Feels like something will drag on even after the purchase completed… 😬

Finally!!!!!

This has nothing to do with changing a will.

As I understand it.
The OP is the prospective purchaser.
Land was offered for sale with trees on it.
The trees are being removed.
Contracts have not yet been exchanged.

While the OP might want to check if there are TPO's on the trees, that won't replace what has been removed.

If there are compelling reasons to change a Will then an application to the Court of Protections (with apologies not as I stated Directions) for what is called a ‘statutory’ will.

This thread has a slightly unhinged vibe.

What on earth are you talking about?

The contents of someones will are irrelevant until the person is dead.

It is a statement of wishes regarding your assets after your demise, not before. If you want to leave someone a bunch of things in your will and between writing the will and dying, you sell, give away, set fire to, fire into space... those things, so be it.

POA means someone else can make that decision for you if you can't make it - if its necessary for the benefit of the donor, then they absolutely can sell things mentioned in the will, they may have no choice but to do so to cover care costs, to repay a local authority or private care firm. Such a decision is only likely to get any scrutiny should someone complain (and they'd need to do so before the donor dies).

There is even a word for it, its called ademption. Sadly your common sense has failed you. A will made when a person was competent to do so has no legal weight until the person has died. Provided that the holder of the POA is acting in the best interests of the person for whom they hold POA as in my example of selling something to cover residential care costs, then the POA holder can go ahead and do it. Yes it can get nasty if there is more than one POA holder and they do not agree but it has nothing to do with the item's being listed in a will. Once the person has died then POA's have no authority or relevance and the task of obtaining probate and distributing the este goes to the executor(s) of the will or whoever applies for letters of administration. If the sold item is held in trust or is entailed then of course different rules apply but if the testator owns it and is alive then somene holding POA can sell it on their behalf.

Well Godmum56 AI may be right or wrong but the clarity and sense of the response allows opportunities to gain further information especially when seeking advice from a solicitor.

AI makes no profit, has nothing to gain.

This allows the friend to make further enquiries but my common sense tells me that a Will cannot be overridden without a Judges decision especially in dealing with Titles to interests in freehold land and estate

The buyer should said stop right now or I’m pulling out, but it seems they’ve just said please stop.

oh AI....and edited AI at that! well that must be right then NOT

To clarify the AI response which I quoted AI also said that application has to be made to the Court of Directions to obtain a determination to allow POA holders to override a Will.

In the case in question what would be the impact where all the POAs are apparently not in agreement and also where it’s possible one sibling could be made homeless.

Medical evidence is required confirming the medical condition of the person who created the Will.

That depends on why the property is being sold. Holders of a property and financial affairs POA absolutely can sell property if the POA is active and the sale is to benefit the person who the POA applies to. So eg a POA holder could sell the land to cover residential care costs. A POA absolutely can override a will. A will has no relevance until the testator dies. For the purposes of the will, items mentioned in a will which have legitimately been sold or otherwise disposed off (eg stolen or broken) before the testator dies are treated as though they don't exist.

There was a case in Weiteveen in the Netherlands where a son had to, against his will, sell a property, which had been in the family for over a hundred years. He kept turning up and arguing with the new owners about the changes they were making. The police were called numerous times but it ended up with him shooting the new owners dead.

I was concerned that the friend states the owner of the property is alive and that siblings hold POA s.

The point is POA doesn’t override a Will.

So the property cannot be sold. End of.

It may be the Will bequeaths the property to one sibling for their lifetime.

This proposed sale suggests Title theft.

Having looked at if a bit more, the suggestion is that if trees are felled illegally the new owner can still be made to replant them so the buyer is taking on a potential liability unless the vendor can demonstrate the appropriate consents to fell

I can't imagine still buying the place, even with reduced asking price/offer

Is the land within a conservation area?
If it is, then you require planning permission to do anything to trees over a certain height (I can’t remember the exact height, but it’s not that tall).

Is it sold through an estate agent and are they aware? They stand to lose out also as a result of this, may have some influence with the sellers and might inform the non-local joint owners who then may be able to stop the felling if against their wishes? I still wouldn’t buy it, but it might save some trees.

In Scotland you couldn’t do this even before exchange as the agreement to purchas is based on all garden contents so you would not be able to remove mature plants etc but our offers are made and accepted legally not just via estate agents etc. if this happened there then they would be breaching the sale agreement and the buyer would pull out but you can do that in England since nothing legal has happened yet. But obviously the sellers don’t really expect that to happen as it’s not explicit at time of purchase. I would tell them to withdraw offer now. Chances are they will then re-negotiate. There’s no option to do nothing though. They’ll just carry on felling trees

Id tell solicitors to tell them I wint be buying if they chop down another tree ...

SYour friends need to pull out … I’m assuming they’re cutting the trees and leaving stumps which will be a pain to remove… then the roots will rot and cause land to sink !

maybe solicitor hasn’t passed on the message… your friends could go and ask them to stop themselves?… and let them know they want the trees!

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tree-felling-getting-permission/tree-felling-getting-permission

Says it all really...............

In their position I would pull out of the sale.
It would never have occurred to me that the trees were not a part of the land I was buying.