My neighbour and her tree

[Cherryblossom200]

Hi there,

I'm looking for a bit of advice please. I live next to an elderly lady who has a massive tree in her garden. It's approx 15 metres if not more tall and is approx 3 metres from the start of my property. It's huge and bushy, It's a horn beam so it's very bushy when it has leaves on it.

I moved into my property about 6 years ago, in that time she's had it pruned once, it hardly made a difference to the tree tbh. And very quickly the branches ended up on my side again.

The issue I have is due to where the sun comes round, she gets all the daylight/sun and the majority of the year we get very little.

I've lived without complaining about it other than to ask if I could cut back the branches which end up on my property and she said I wasn't allowed to. So I've left it. I've always tried to keep the peace and avoid conflict with her.

I'm in the process of having an extension done to the back of my house, it's single storey so doesn't block any of her light or sun. However we are now even closer to the tree, some branches are almost half way across my garden and already starting to block my new guttering.

My garden has lost all of its grass and is water logged from all the leaves, it's a nightmare and unusable.

I tried talking to her about it today, and she said she will prune it when the leaves fall off. I tried explaining the impact it has on us, and she dismissed it by saying I shouldn't of moved to a property next to a tree if I didn't like it.

All I want is the tree to be made smaller. My greatest concern is if a branch falls on my child or myself when we are in the garden, and also it gets uprooted in a storm.

I've sent her a polite, yet firm message today. Explaining the impact it has on our quality of life, and that due to its size and proximity to our houses (they are only small 2 beds!) it needs to be made into a smaller, safer size. I emphasised wanting not to upset her, cause conflict and to keep the beauty of the tree.

If she doesn't listen, what other steps are there for me?

Before anyone jumps down my throat, I absolutely love nature. This isn't about chopping down the tree. It's about getting a happy compromise that works for us both, but first and foremost keeping us safe.

Sod this OP, you are legally allowed to trim it back to the boundary.
Don't ask her, tell her that you will be cutting the tree back on a certain date unless she would prefer to do it herself prior to that.

you are allowed to cut up to the boundary, but you need to offer the branches back

You also must not cut so much that you cause damage to the tree, make it unsafe / unbalanced or kill it.

other posters have already stated the correct legal position. In the absence of a TPO you are allowed to cut back anything overhanging your property as long as you offer the branches to her. If she doesn't want them then you need to dispose of them.

Explain that is what you are going to do and if she would rather the tree maintain a better shape she could have her own tree surgeon do a proper maintenance cut back (which is usually 30% of the tree).

Our neighbour has a massive tree and it's a weak flimsy one too. One gust of wind it will be on our house. Absolutely nothing been done about it so we have organised a tree surgeon to come this month to deal with it.

You’ve already been polite multiple times, she’s not going to do it, she obviously doesn’t care about your quality of life. I expect it might be cheaper to have it done while you already have the tree surgeon out than calling him back, I’d just do it.

Agree, and make sure it is a proper tree surgeon who knows what they are doing, and not just a Chainsaw Charlie. There's a big difference between having an chainsaw licence, and being able to properly prune a tree so it keeps its shape, and remains in good health.

I've been in the same situation. I ended up getting a tree surgeon round to quote to remove the neighbour's trees that had spread completely across my garden (neighbour said he wanted them gone). Offered to pay half, my neighbour said he wouldn't contribute.

Said trees are leylandii (sp?) and 40ft odd high. My garden is only about 20ft across.

Tree surgeon chopped them back to my boundary and my neighbour ended up with a garden completely full to 4ft high of tree clippings. I did ask if he was happy for the clippings to be returned or did he want to contribute to the cost of removal. He didn't want to pay for removal.

I suffered again though, he spent weeks burning the wet clippings every day, all day...

Why aren't you raking up the leaves? That would resolve the waterlogging and dead grass. You could compost or bin the leaves.

Doing this, is in fact completely legal when the tree overhangs your property boundary.

Cut anything that overhangs, you are perfectly entitled to.

There are two massive NDN trees that overshadow our garden. NDN does not prune them and I would say they are between 100 and 150ft.
We have tree surgeons in every few years for our own trees and we lop off everything that hangs over our garden from her tree. We have to put up with total shade with these trees so I will not put up with all the leaves, it means the shape of the tree looks odd now but as they won't ever pay for pruning, we have no choice. They even try to commandeer our tree surgeon to do work on their trees without paying!

We have before paid the bill to have a black poplar tree removed on their side that was close to the boundary and the roots lifting all the paving stones our side. We spent YEARS trying to reach agreement, until we lost the will to live and paid it all . No more.
We just remove branches our side, we've been too accommodating in the past

You can cut back any branches that are overhanging you side. Also I've heard that copper nails in a tree trunk will kill a tree. 😁

What she wants is totally irrelevant. If there's no TPO, AONB or conservation area you are legally allowed to cut back any parts of the tree within your boundary regardless of height, you ate supposed to offer the cuttings to the owner but are not allowed to just throw over to their property as that is seen as fly tipping. The worst thing about it is that is all at your expense and a very tall tree can be very expensive to cut back. If half the tree is on your side of the fence you could literally cut a straight line down in line with the fence and there is absolutely nothing neighbour can do.

Unfortunately it's very difficult to prove a tree is possibly unstable and might at some point cause your house problems and insurance companies seem to be asking about trees further away than they used to following the upending of very mature trees due to masses of rain earlier in the year.

Ask your tree surgeon to provide a report on the tree, outlining recommendations.

OP I can see that you want to maintain a good relationship with your neighbour so are trying to get her on side and see things from your point of view. Unfortunately, some people will never consider other people in the choices they make.
My elderly neighbour has repeatedly pissed us off by cutting height of our hedge which wasn’t very tall, sneakily installing gutters over our property when she had her flat roof changed and even stealing fencing slats from our fence to use in her own garden!) The end result is that we have no relationship with her now and no respect. Her son is a solicitor and they know we are unlikely to take them to court over the encroachments because who can afford that? We certainly couldn’t. I wish you good luck and I do understand why you want her on side.

Oh for gods sake just leave the tree. Yes cut it slightly out your gutters. But really you should of thought of this before you bought the house / built an extension.

And I say that for three reasons.

• Hornbeam grows thicker if you cut it. It’s the same stuff you see as hedges. So you have a little more light for a year. Then you have a whole lot less for all the years after.
• Hornbeam is very tough and very stable. It’s quite unlikely to collapse into your house. But if you are worried get an arboriculturist to come and assess (and that’s different to a tree surgeon because most of the good guys are super busy, if they have time to come and have a look at your tree they clearly are looking for work; Which they absolutely shouldn’t be in autumn/ winter).
• Hornbeam pruning season is over. Pruning after the leaves turn can weaken the tree.

One option you do have is you can pollard hornbeams quite significantly. And this will actually increase the life span of the tree if you do it every year - depending on how mature it is and it’s current health. It will however make the tree grow even taller. Unfortunately though you need to repollard every year, or else your now super tall and aggressively growing tree will allow rot into the wood, and it will become weaker overtime, potentially eventually hollow and then could fall on your house. Quite an expensive commitment and obviously you need the neighbour on board.

Personally bar a light gutter trim I would just leave it.

She must think you're an absolute walkover.

I'd get it cut on Friday.

You are on a hiding to nothing here. It’s her tree, it was there when you bought the house, and it’s in the nature of most trees to grow to a certain size however much or how often you chop them back. If you were my neighbour I would say a polite version of Tough Shit too.

As everyone has said I have a right to cut down what's on my side. Which I will.

she’s not being accomodating to you, so while I would not be rude in this situation I would explain why and still trim the branches on your side back, as is your right. If she wants to grow gigantic trees and not get hassled then she needs to move to an isolated rural spot. Trees don’t stay the same forever, ones in gardens need to be maintained, she has to get that.

Anything over hanging your garden you are allowed to trim back- just offer her the branches back. If you get this done there is nothing that she can do about it and it may mean that she tidies up her side too 🤗

Our NDN's have got a walnut tree that is literally just on their boundary side but probably 75% of the f'ing thing covers our garden. It makes it unusable at this time of year for debris, and as it was damaging the grass so badly we gave up and laid a patio instead so we can at least jet wash it clean. In the spring it dumps fine powder over everything, the only nice time is summer when it's in full leaf or bare in the winter. I gave up with a washing line years ago. If I'd have known what debris came off it, we'd have never bought the house. DH went round last year to ask them into our garden and they were quite shocked at the amount of crap it was shedding so in their defence, they had surgeons in earlier this year (it's got a TPO) and they managed to reduce it by 30%.

I would never buy a house next to someone with a large tree in their garden again. But OP if it's not protected, I'd cut everything off that overhangs your garden. Perfectly legal to do.

You cannot force her to do anything to her tree on her side so just stop harassing her. She told you no once already why are you insisting on badgering her. You know the legal position - she doesn't have to but you can cut anything overhanging and offer the cuttings back to her.

When your buying a house all these things need to be taken into consideration. No point moaning about it afterwards. Different matter if she planted a tree after you bought it and it grew to an enormous size but even then what can you do - not much.

I've recently planted two small trees in my garden and they are really lovely to have - I won't let them grow too big because it'll affect my insurance price over a certain height however if I wanted to leave them to grow I could.

There is no law for rights to light.

There is a law to rights to light

She has no choice. If no TPO just get someone in to chop all branches to the boundary. Offer the branches- but don’t leave them on her side.
Out of politeness I would let her know what you intend to do- but it sounds like she isn’t going to be interested!

It totally depends on where you live.

there is no right to light in Scots Law.

your message was very long.
be succinct.
Just tell her you are cutting back to the boundary, as you are entitled to do.

or just go ahead and prune.