Neighbour's tree fell into our garden - who pays?

[MummytoMog]

I was worried that one of our trees might fall, but in fact it was out neighbour's rotten old damson that toppled in the night, broke the fence and landed on my shed. Shed is not happy, but still standing just. Garden is filled with manky tree and it has squashed the kid's climbing frame. Went round to check that they knew, they didn't, so said do you want to the about what you'd like to do and let me know. Got a very firm 'you claim through your insurers and then they reclaim from us'. Builders are in this morning and have said that insurers won't cover tree removal or damage to fence. I could handle replacing the fence, was pretty sure it needed doing anyway, but I'm damned if I'm paying a couple of hundred quid to have their manky tree removed.

I maintain my trees properly. I felled a tree last year because the surgeon said it was a bit dodgy, and I regularly cut off deadwood from my trees which overhang my neighbours' gardens. But apparently, I should just be a total cunt about it and let them deal with my trees, because that's the law?

I would ring your insurers and ask for advice.

Any chance the builders are hoping you'll pay them to deal with it because you think they're right?

IMO their tree, they pay but I'm sure they would dispute this.

Generally you would claim on their house insurance, via your ins co, afaik. Like you do with car issues that are the fault of the other party.

Why won't they cover tree removal or making good the damage? One of our healthy trees lost a limb earlier this year and damaged our property (not the house, property within our boundary) and our insurer paid for removal of the fallen wood, the clean up and the repair of the damages. Sadly not removal of whole tree as tree is healthy and has TPO, but if whole tree had have fallen they would have paid for its removal & disposal.

I would have thought their tree, their insurance - our neighbour's nephew rapidly got tree surgeons over to remove the tree on our boundary that was in his aunt's garden that had started leaning, just in case it damaged our house if it did fall over (I had told him about it as I was worried about her house and garage which it was leaning towards!)

I think builder's telling you that in the hope of a quick cash job.

Nneighbour ought to deal with it through his insurance. They'll be paying for it ultimately. But then you have to wait on him. If you go through your insurance you have a bit more influence on getting it done. They will claim off his insurance, technically it won't cost you, but effectively it will because your premium may go up even if you don't lose your NCD.

So, which do you prefer: wait on him, or bear the possible cost of getting it sorted yourself.

Well I don't want to lose my NCD or pay my excess. So I'd rather he sorted it out and wait a bit to be honest. Waiting on a call back from insurers.

You could post on GardenLaw

If your insurance can't help you could write to the nieghbour telling them to sort it out giving them a reasonable time in which to do it. If they don't do anything then get quotes and write and tell them that you intend to do the work and reclaim the costs in a small claim court. This may prompt them into action. If not then it's relatively easy and cheap to take them to the small claims court.

The Citizens Advice Bureau may be able to help with this. You may also have legal cover with your home insurance (or with you bank or work etc)

Send everything signed recorded delivery and keep copies of everything and take loads of pictures.

Don't bother getting into arguments or discussions with them.

It's their tree and there responsibility.

The consequential damage may be insured but not the removal of the tree itself. Last time there was a major storm , fence panels were in short supply so doubt any repair would be immediate.