AIBU to think my neighbour should have dealt with this tree 10 years ago

[Hadjab]

When we bought our house 21 years ago, our neighbour was a lovely elderly widowed American woman. She had a gardener who would come in once a month to tend to the garden, keeping everything in check, including two trees. When she died, a property developer bought the house and converted it to three flats, the bottom and top he rents out, the middle, privately owned.

Ten years ago, my husband contacted the landlord to ask him to trim the tree next to our fence back, as it was beginning to block the light into our kitchen. Basically, he fobbed us off constantly for a number of years. We offered to go halves on the cost several times, as it was in our interest to do so - average cost of the quotes at that time were around £800.

Fast forwards to now, and the tree is approximately 60ft or more, and we have to have the light on in the kitchen during the day if we want to use it. I got more quotes recently, which are, on average, around £3k to deal with it. I’ve contacted the council’s tree department, but have heard nothing back in three months - COVID I expect. The neighbours who rent the downstairs flat have also been trying to get him to deal with it for the past five years - he has told them that they need to pay the full cost. Their garden is pretty much pitch black on even the sunniest of days.

Photos attached. What can I do now?

You could try and approach him with the insurance angle, if he's declared a tree that big and that close to the house he could have lower premiums if it was sensitively made more safe (proper pollarding and checks for disease and branches that may hot the building during bad storms). If he hasn't declared the tree he might find himself in a bit of a sticky wicket if it does damage property and there's a long trail of people who have asked him to deal with it.

Am not an expert but I do love a tree dispute. Please don't kill the tree though!

You shou!d have chopped it down when the old lady died, not much you can do now except trim the branches on your side.

I've spent several thousand cutting trees back this year. If you read your insurance documents you may realize you're not covered by it if you've trees that height so close to your home.

It sounds awful and I feel for you. However, once you knew the ll wasn’t interested you should have offered to pay then-it would have been cheaper!

@Griselda1

I've spent several thousand cutting trees back this year. If you read your insurance documents you may realize you're not covered by it if you've trees that height so close to your home.

I live on an estate with lots of trees covered by tree protection orders. The trees are older than the estate.

Some insurance companies will not insure on the estate because of the trees. But most have no problems, and unless your insurance asks whether you are a certain distance from a large tree, it's no problem.
If a tree/branch comes down it is for the insurance of the person whose house it came down on, not the owner of the tree. The only exception to this is if the tree was clearly dangerous, and by that I mean dead or diseased in at least part.

If you have a tree with a protection order on you can't even trim the tree without permission.

Even if there were a TPO you still need to look after trees (a good tree surgeon will lift the crown/ shape the tree as it grows).

3k is extortionate, we had 2 large trees removed of a similar size plus others maintained/ shaped and it cost under £2k (and they removed the debris) I’d get another quote. It was about £200 to then get the two stumps ground out.

Meet with the downstairs neighbour, if he’s said it can be removed if they pay perhaps you can split the cost with them and have it taken down. We paid for a neighbours tree to be removed, they didn’t care but it blocked a huge amount of our light. They could of said no but we’re kind enough to let us. I didn’t expect them to pay despite it being their tree as it wasn’t causing them issues.

(Oh we have always had permission from the council with the trees with tpos on though before maintained)

Sadly I think if you want something doing then you need to pay for it, I would speak to everyone in the flats and see if you can all chip in for it. It doesn't affect the landlord day to day so they will keep their hand in their pocket.

Ultimately you have to ask yourself is it worth £3k to you to get rid of the tree?