how do i find out who is responsible

[lulu2]

for very tall trees on the boundary of a house I am buying. The sellers don't know and my conveyancers have said i have to find this out myself.
The owner died and its her children who are selling the house so they don't know much about the house. Surely there must be an easy way of finding out who owns the trees, would the Land registry be able to tell us?
Anyone had similar experience?

Won't it be on the deeds? The Land Registry probably only know where the boundaries are. But worth checking because the Land Reg boundaries may show the trees definitely be inside/outside what you thought of as a bounday, rather than actually on it.

Don't quote me but I always thought if the trees were within the boundary of the property you owned them (or rather the owners of the house).

Its also worth checking to see if you're in a conservation area. We were once purchasing a house which had very tall trees which we had ideas about cutting down (were concerned about the roots and damage to the house) but the house was in a tree conservation (?) area so we wouldn't have been able to.

thanks for replies. hadn't thought about conservation bit.
The sellers think the trees are outside the actual boundary but I wanted to know who owns them as they are leylandii. Short of going round there and knocking on people's doors I am running out of ideas.
I do feel that the conveyancers should be of more help though.

dont see why this is so difficult. are the trees on your land, or on their land?

You need to find out who owns the land which they are growing on.

Are they on land which you are buying?
There will be plans filed at the Land registry which will show the boundary line. If not you'll need to find the title information of the land which they are on at the land registry (assuming the land isn't unregistered, quite rare these days).

Your conveyancer will be able to do the Land Registry research if you're unsure how to but they'll want paying more for it. If you tell them it's crucial to your move they should be offering to assist with your search!

Careful with cutting down leylandii - yes, hey have long roots and can damage foundations, BUT they also take moisture out of the soil and the soil can heave and also damage the foundations if the tree are cut down. Please see a structural or geotechnical engineer before chopping them down!

If the trees have a cicumference of more than 1m they are likely to have a tree preservation order on them.