Fence damage after St Jude's - who should pay?

[louisea]

Just wanted to check who should foot the cost of repair. We don't have a problem with paying.

Part of our tree fell over the fence. I had assumed (incorrectly) that the neighbors would chop off the offending branch and dispose of it. The neighbor knocked on the door this morning to say that the fence is also damaged. As he rents the house we will need to liaise probably with the owner, who happens to live across the road. Can we claim against insurance, is it worth claiming on insurance?

I really just wanted to know whether we are responsible for the repair or whether the neighbor should pay as the damage was caused by the storm. This is the first time that we've ever had a problem like this.

Morally of course you should pay, it was your tree that caused the damage! I'm pretty sure that's the case legally too.

I think it's your responsibility to maintain the tree, so you'll probably have to pay. You'd have to check whether it is covered in your household insurance, as tree damage is not a standard part if the cover. But it may not be worth claiming: how much does a fence panel cost?

I don't know yet how much the repair will cost. Will have to check with a fence company. We have some builders on site doing a loft conversion so might ask them if they can take care of it.

Similar to us - our neighbour's half dead tree fell on our shed and fence. As it happened, we were going to replace both anyway and the insurance would only have covered the cost of the shed, fence and tree removal were not included. So we split the cost with the neighbour to have someone chop it all up (we got the wood for the burner, so probably didn't actually cost us anything more than the wood would have done) and told him not to worry about the fence and shed and we wouldn't bother making an insurance claim.