homebuyer tree damage report - how much and who pays?

[Doraemon]

We are in the process of trying to buy a house with several large mature trees in the garden. Our mortgage provider has asked for an arboriculturalist report as there is cracking in the (detached) garage which they say is evidence of subsidence. Can anyone advise me how much the report is likely to cost?
If we need to chop down big trees this is going to get expensive isn't it.....

We had exactly the same problem, although we were allowed to get away with a structural survey, which cost about £500 from what I remember. We knew that the cracking in the garage was caused by a leaking pond, we just needed a structural survey to say that. Having a big old tree chopped down shouldn't be too bad. We were quoted around £350 to have a massive ash next to our house taken down and chopped into firewood.

We (the buyers) paid.

Our tree survey cost £900 - though that was for half an acre of mature woodland which the surveyor had to trample around. I'd contact a few arboriculturists in the area and get some rough quotations, but assume around the few hundred pounds mark. We managed to get the seller of our house/land to pay half the cost of the report, probably because they were quite desperate to sell. You might be able to convince your vendors to cover some of the cost, especially as it sounds likely that this is something that's going to come up with any prospective buyer's mortgage lender and make it difficult for them to sell without.

Hate to say it but yes, tree surgeons are expensive! And if the trees overhang power lines you'll probably have to hire a cherry-picker as many tree surgeons won't/aren't insured to work near power lines. We received quotations which worked out as about £500 per tree for a pair of tree surgeons to take down all our dead mature trees - that covered one bloke to climb the tree and bring it down and one on the ground to saw up what came down and move it out of the way. We have a log-burning biomass boiler, so every tree taken down is fuel for us. Again, if the report comes back saying that trees need to come down then you can try asking the vendors to reduce the sale price accordingly.

Thank you! Have tree survey sorted out for tomorrow - am hoping any problems are fixable at least....