Tree Survey

[Bulldogclips]

Am midway (hopefully) through a purchase. The vendors wanted everything to be quick, but haven't produced any documents except the deeds in over 2 months.

My lender survey came back to say I needed to get a row of trees surveyed that are at the bottom of the garden. The EA originally told us the trees were owned by the council as was the strip of land they're on.

Have spoken with council who say this is nonsense, my sol has confirmed there has been no change to the boundary so they're trees for the house.

A survey is £400 and if the trees need removed it'll be over £3000. Would I be unreasonable to ask the V to cover the cost of the survey? My offer was based on the notion that if something went wrong with the trees it wouldn't be my problem.

As someone who had a tree they owned come down and write off their car I would say pay for the survey yourselves. It's your mortgage lender who wants it.

First of all, I'd definitely confirm who owns the land/trees. Your solicitor will be able to find this out from the Land Registry. My experience with local councils and hefty tree surgery bills are that they will deny and avoid if possible.

The property isn't in Land Registry yet, but the boundaries on the original maps would make the trees fall within the boundaries.

You're probably right they the council wouldn't really be eager to maintain them anyway, just the added expense is frustrating. My sol says don't do anything about it until we get all the outstanding searches etc in

It is quite unusual that the property isn't registered yet. Have the vendors lived there for years and years?

Yea they lived there from it was built 40 years ago

Compulsory registration only took effect in the late 1990s in some areas.

Our property wasn't registered that we purchased earlier this year, rural area so quite typical here. When it was built, in 1965, the people who bought it originally sold it to us.
Are the sellers registering prior to selling or are you registering yourselves after purchase? We were very lucky in that the plans were clear, no issues or any boundaries etc changing so it was really straight forward, what was on the paper plans went through. I'd be tempted to assume they are your trees if that's what the paper plans say.
I do think a tree survey would fall to you though, allowing you to then negotiate the selling cost if the trees do need to come down. Has the structrual survey thrown anything up to suggest they are an issue?

Haven't had a full structural survey yet, just waiting on the nod from my solicitor to look at the trees first. Don't want to throw good money after bad if the tress are buggered

If there is a problem with the trees, make it a condition of the sale that the vendor has them crown reduced or cut down.