I have a long garden that attaches to a garden at the bottom from a house 5 doors awa, but split by a thick hedge. The majority of my garden runs along side my direct neighbours house, but our garden and the garden of the house 5 doors away are long and 'kind of' circle the 4 houses' gardens inbetween.
My dh and I were clearing old trees and bushes from our garden as it was really shabby. We topped a number of large evergreens and removed 4 pine large trees and cut back shrubs etc.
There was a 6 foot tree in the middle of the thick hedge at the bottom of the garden that was bent over and collapsing. My dh cut out the tree.
The neighbours 5 doors away were hysterical. They moved to the house about 6 months ago. The woman came over crying because we had removed all the trees and topped others. It has opened up her view to houses, where as before her view was of green trees.
All the evergreen trees were in our garden and we were well in our right to remove them. However, the 6 foot tree in the middle of the hedge she claims was her tree and it was an 'arch' not bent from collapsing.
We apologised (even though we didn't think it was 'her' tree) and said that we really thought it was collapsing and would replace the tree. We offered her £150 towards a new tree.
Her husband came round shouting the odds and my dh felt physically threatened, even thought the guy was going to punch him. They said that they wanted a new tree that was over 3 metres tall, which cost £320. As we don't want to fall out we agreed to the higher amount. Even though it was not a like for like replacement.
Now they are asking us to pay for it to be dug in and they want it in a different position (not in the middle of the hedge at the bottom of our respective gardens), but higher up. This will cost us well over £500 in total.
We know that they want the new tree bigger and in a different position so to block the view of the houses that they can now see because we removed and topped pine trees that we were well in our right to remove in our garden.
We have agreed to the additional cost but I feel really aggrieved. We agreed so to keep the peace. But even after bending over backward to their demands, they are still being really grumpy and rude to us.
I am so upset by this situation. I don't know what to do.