Neighbour wants to cut my tree down.

[Lemonnhoney]

More of a WWYD.

Neighbour around the back of my house (gardens back onto each other) just came round to ask if she could cut the branches off a big sycamore tree at the end of my garden.

Apparently it's covering her garden with something? I'm assuming it's the flowers which are quite sticky with sap. She has just built a dog kennel too and apparently it's ruining it?!

It's quite a big tree and I get where she is coming from but it's so beneficial for wildlife, I see so many birds in it and it must be a habitat for thousands of insects.

I kind of fumbled about how I'm into nature and wasn't too sure and then said I'd have to ask my landlord.

I could pribably agree to her giving the tree a trim but to cut all the branches off? No way.

I feel awkward about it all though because I don't want any hassle.

AIBU for just ignoring her until she asks again then saying no 😂 I don't know what to say to her.

If you LL is happy with whatever you prefer, then I would take the approach that you're happy with some trimming but that you would need to talk to her Tree Surgeon too so you know what he recommends. This has the advantage that you can check that she really is using someone competent to do it. BTW, I think the best time will be late autumn/Winter. If her tree man suggests now - he isn't competent.

I agree with those that say you need to ask the landlord. It's then up to him to negotiate with the ndn. Hopefully s/he will be able to find a solution that maintains the structure but reduces the impact. I can sympathise with neighbours who are inconvenienced by huge trees in neighbouring gardens. But you can't cut trees at the moment due to the nesting season.

After living in a house that backed on to a sycamore tree I feel her pain , I couldn't put my washing out , it blocked all our light and we pulled up hundreds of little sycamore trees from our garden
Was so glad when the neighbour has it cut ( not down totally bit took a bit of height and all the branches hanging by ours )

Also agree don't think can be cut now anyway my mum had tree surgeon into look at taking trees down a bit at back if hers as they are so big and he said he couldn't do until sept due to birds nesting etc

She doesn't want things blowing into her garden so wants to chop all the branches down to the trunk
So basically she wants to destroy the tree!

No!

I actually sympathise with her to be honest. Our neigubor has 3 giant sycamores that tower over the houses. I love nature but I don't think they should be in a residential area. It is a constant battle, the horrible sticky sap and all the gnats, then the stupid seeds that go everywhere and are a nightmare to find, plus we have no light in the garden. Plus occasionally branches fall off, the last one smashed our bird house to pieces.

The neighbor doesn't pull up the seeds either so there are four more large ones growing and more little ones. It is going to be a serious problem soon. Our patio is pushed up by the roots.

We are renting and will be moving because of the trees. It didn't seem so bad when we first moved in but even in the past few years they have grown ridiculously

I'm a huge advocate for beautiful mature trees - or I was! Last year we moved into a new home with a narrow wraparound garden. Directly behind our back door (and patio) we back onto another property who have a HUGE horse chestnut.

Our vendors said they'd planned to speak to the neighbours and get it lopped or removed, but hadn't got around to it. We have a main water drain / sewer running through our back garden a couple of metres from the tree and there's considerable earth movement in between. I'm worried about the roots causing damage so called in a tree surgeon for a quote.

Turns out it has a TPO on it! Neither vendors nor survey mentioned or spotted it. I've applied for permission to lop it back (at our expense!) but they weren't optimistic.

So I'm worried about our drains, our foundations, the constant shower of leaves, sticky stuff, blossom and finally conkers. One nearly took out my MIL as she exited the back door last autumn though, so it's not all bad...

Yep you could be in very serious bother if you allow her to do anything OP - it isn't your tree. As a LL i would absolutely do my nut if you agreed for someone to harm my property or even potentially kill/destroy it. You would be on the hook for the cost of replacing a mature tree, which is insanely expensive.

She needs to liaise direct with the LL and leave you out of it.

It's a tree. Is it any wonder that our ecosystems are falling apart when people are all replacing back gardens with AstroTurf, front gardens with paving stones and comparing cutting down tree branches in nesting season with lobbing a dirty mattress over a fence?

Who said it had to be done in nesting season? I said that it wasn’t the same thing with the mattress, but the principle is the same: if I want to dictate how you use (or can’t use) your garden and cause you a lot of work and expense to minimise the negative effects caused by my property, does it really make a lot of difference in principle if it’s a natural pest or an artificial one?

If people don’t want nature happening in their garden they should pay to encase their garden in glass. Sap is a pain in the arse but fuck sake are we really this selfish and turned off to climate change and how humans are damaging this planet a sparkling patio is more important?

You could always move out of your own property and donate all of the land to a conservation charity to turn it into a nature reserve…. Nature is wonderful, but it has its place. Manure is perfect for fertilising crops and the wind sometimes carries the whiff over our way from the farms – all fine – but I still wouldn’t be happy if somebody came and dumped a ton of it by my front door.

Tell her to fuck off. You can put it more politely, if you so inclined.

Seriously? Somebody wants to find an amicable solution to your (or your landlord’s) property damaging the enjoyment of their own property and that’s your response? How extremely entitled.

a lot of trees are there before a boundary is though tbf.

I’m guessing that, when many boundaries were marked out a long time ago, they probably deliberately chose things like trees as landmarks. Much simpler to say you’ll have up to the big tree (whether including or excluding it in your land) and the neighbour can have immediately from the other side – especially if people didn’t otherwise bother with or were able to afford fences and an immovable object was much easier to identify than a random line in the ground.

I wonder if you’re one of my neighbours - they have a sycamore that overhangs into the back of my garden (and others) too but I haven’t been to ask about it yet

Question for those in the know. My neighbour is constantly chopping branches off my trees. He does not just go to the boundary, he chops right back into the trees so technically into my air space. He then leaves all the branches in my garden and I have to dispose of them. He chops at my trees when I am not in. The reason he does it is because the trees apparently block his view.

Am I within my rights to toss the branches back into his garden and tell him to dispose of them considering he did not offer them back? I would have told him no I don't want them back if he had offered.

Seriously? Somebody wants to find an amicable solution to your (or your landlord’s) property damaging the enjoyment of their own property and that’s your response? How extremely entitled.

No. What is entitled is wanting to cut a tree to suit someone's wants.

So yes, they can fuck right off.

We are renting and will be moving because of the trees. It didn't seem so bad when we first moved in but even in the past few years they have grown ridiculously

Nature is amazing - essential - in the right place, but would most people really be content to know that their inappropriate and reckless selfishness had driven their neighbours to feel forced out of their own home? Probably a string of unsuspecting neighbours, actually.

Selfish nightmare antisocial neighbours come in various guises - it's not only the ones who make a load of noise or start a parking vendetta because they think they own the public highway.

My neighbour once came round to ask me if they could sympathetically trim the oak tree that was on the edge of our boundary - they had researched the gardener and it would be carefully done. Like an idiot I said yes. A proper muppet turned up with a chainsaw, stood on top of our wall and ran the chainsaw up the tree cutting off everything that grew on their side leaving me with half a tree.

I would highly recommend that you employ a proper tree surgeon and then you have control over what is being done. It took 4 years for our tree to look anywhere near decent again. Dont trust them to do a good job!

I was rented a garden flat a couple of doors down from a mature sycamore. We were slightly down hill, which meant that our garden got no sun at all through the summer because of this tree, and no light in the back of the flat all year.

It was just a rental, so we didn't feel it was appropriate to ask someone to thin out a tree that was at least 150 years old, but by golly I would have been happy if they did!

I can certainly empathise with your neighbour, would you consider allowing them to pay for a tree surgeon to assess the situation? There might be a compromise out there

Sycamores are an absolute pain in the arse. They are considered aggressive weeds in some countries and grow ridiculously quickly and easily.

Legally she can't make you cut it down but being the part owner of one of these trees that absolutely ruins two gardens I can sympathise with her a lot.

No. What is entitled is wanting to cut a tree to suit someone's wants.

So yes, they can fuck right off.

Wow. So the owner of the property where the tree is is perfectly free to cut it according to what suits them (assuming no TPO), but a third party whose enjoyment of their property is damaged by it should have no rights at all?

In theory, over decades, you could cultivate a huge tree with a trunk at a steep angle that is beautiful for you to look at from your sun lounger, whilst the reach of its upper branches and leaves casts your neighbour's entire garden into permanent darkness - and THEY would still be the unreasonable ones for wanting something to be done about it?

I'm wondering if any of the people on this thread live near me. The whole area is covered in bastard sycamores and whilst not coveted by TPOs are in a conservation area so more of a pain to chop down. Also costs £1200 to fell so not cheap either.

She can cut the overhanging branches of course but anything on your side is up to you!, she's being UR to ask you to chop something down that's in your own garden.

A neighbour did this to me. Cut off an overhanging branch. It completely "unbalanced" the tree, making it heavy on one side. The whole tree fell down in next storm.

I sympathise with your neighbours - I hate sycamores (in gardens, they are perfectly acceptable in the wild!). We had some in our rental property, and we weren't allowed to do anything with them. They blocked out so much light, and got infected with white fly every year. We couldn't even hang out the washing, it was so bad!

A proper muppet turned up with a chainsaw, stood on top of our wall and ran the chainsaw up the tree cutting off everything that grew on their side leaving me with half a tree.

I'm not saying they were right to do that, but it does seem quite presumptuous of you to simply expect to use your neighbour's property (and deprive them of any choice in the use of it) for half of your tree. You would have the right to cut down your tree and reclaim that part of your garden, should you want to, but they shouldn't have that option for their own garden?

I'm sure you would be far from happy if they bought themselves a colossal motorhome that wouldn't quite fit fully on their drive and so encroached three feet on to yours - with them just assuming that there wouldn't be a problem at all.

A neighbour did this to me. Cut off an overhanging branch. It completely "unbalanced" the tree, making it heavy on one side. The whole tree fell down in next storm.

In that case, you must have been occupying a large amount of their land in the first place.

Wow. So the owner of the property where the tree is is perfectly free to cut it according to what suits them (assuming no TPO), but a third party whose enjoyment of their property is damaged by it should have no rights at all?

Yes, you can plant and cut your own trees, assuming no TPO.

[quote AGrownManMadeWager]@PrimalLass a lot of trees are there before a boundary is though tbf. [/quote]
I know. But that's why I said it should be illegal to plant them now. You need planning to stick up a 7ft fence but can plant a tree that will eventually be 50ft.