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

[justasking111]

Not exchanged yet but the owners offspring are now chopping down the trees presumably for firewood to sell. Do friends have any rights before exchange or could all the trees be gone before they buy it?

Are they being unreasonable to be upset or is it fair practice before exchange?

Oops that wasn’t meant to post 🙈 tried to click ‘active’ to leave the thread but the page went wild and I clicked the wrong button 🤦‍♀️

But it’s not your surroundings it’s your friends

That's a good point actually. They don't live there yet whenever estate agent surveyor, etc has visited they're always hovering around.

When healthy trees are felled for no good reason, it's a big loss for all of us, and other species.

I’m in Scotland and you can’t just clear trees - I think it’s 20 tons but I’m not sure.we were clearing stuff near our house and someone from ?Scottish Woidland rolled up as we’d been reported. Also another area a mile away was cleared and had to be replanted as had done it without permission.

@bluebunnyrabbit Yep, certain woods are valuable. I only know this as I know someone IRlL who owns some woodland.

You can't convert a townie sadly

Remember sycamore gap

The elm trees which eventually became immune to the disease and flourished.

Well considering I don’t live in a town and I’m not a ‘townie’ you’ve made a wrong assumption there

I take it these are all healthy trees? Ash Dieback is a big problem in this country and often ash trees have to be removed as become unsafe. (Still make good firewood).
Fruit trees, fortunately can be replanted and grow fairly quickly so your friends could still have an orchard. (We planted ours 2 years ago and have had a great harvest this year). Seems odd to cut them down as I wouldn't imagine they would make the best firewood.
But obviously mature, healthy trees will take decades to replace.
It sounds like the farm has been sold against one son's wishes and I agree, I would be keeping well away.

Whilst I understand the trees being cut down is awful (I live surrounded by trees and woodland and would not be happy if they were to be pulled down), I don’t understand why Op is so invested in their ‘friends’ property.

I was worried they'd start pulling out other stuff and flogging it on marketplace.

What difference does it make to OP if the owners start pulling things out of their house and selling them? That’s for the friend to worry about if they’re buying a house as seen and then things change

What were the conditions of the sale?

https://www.forbestreecare.com/blog/can-you-legally-cut-down-trees-uk/

Maybe some of the trees are protected?

Pull out. I own a similar sounding property and the market for selling is tough (it just took our neighbours nearly 2 years to sell and they had to slice off a lot of agricultural land and drop the price by £200k!). What’s very silly is that the pittance they will get from a few trees worth of non-seasoned firewood will not equal the value lost to the property by chopping down a mature woodland and orchard. I’d be pointing that out to them when I pulled out too.

They need to be named and shamed with photos of the land before trees were lopped down and after. It’s not libel if it’s true. Get your friend to post on mumsnet & those scumbags might be shamed in the news

Sadly the owner is away with the fairies now. It doesn't mention it the person with a POA if they have one becomes the defacto owner.

OP can you post the rightmove ad on here ?

They just need to walk away and find another property. Who knows what else the sellers will do.

Who cares? People are free to form opinions about things. OP is just thinking aloud about what she believes the situation probably is RE siblings. It makes no material difference to anything.

You don't need a licence to fell trees in a private garden or orchard.

If it's a woodland, rather than garden, you can fell any amount of trees less than 8 cm

Bigger than that , you can fell up to 5 cubic meters per calendar quarter, of any size for personal use (but you can only sell 2 cubic metres)

Over that you need a licence, or it's an offense

You may also commit an offense if you systematically clear an area over time.

Suggest your friends have a look at the Forestry Commission website.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/689ef6c7b4b6acd341133a26/FC_Tree_Felling_July_2025.pdf

(Yes, we own woodland!)

Sure, but isn’t it possible these trees are being felled because of ash die-back? I just had to fell two beautiful mature ashes in my garden, and am heartbroken, olus I buy firewood from a farm which has an entire ash wood they’re hand felling (and replacing with new native species as part of a government-funded scheme) because nothing can be done for the infected trees.

If it's been on the market for ages then your friends are in a strong position to withdraw their offer in earnest.

It's possible, but if you had an offer wouldn't you leave it to the new owner to sort out?

Rather than pull out of the sale, your friends could revise their offer and threaten that any further felling would result in further reduction

Are your friends as bothered by it as you though, OP? Genuine question and not meant goadily