Bushes encroaching on neighbours’ garden - who is responsible?

[FiveGensOfLove]

Hello - would appreciate some advice from any landlords in particular! We rented out our property last year, in the UK, after having to move temporarily for work. We have an elderly neighbour and, whenever we trimmed our bushes along our shared boundary, she’d ask us to do her side as well (i.e. trim the same bushes on her side). The bushes are in our garden. We were happy to do this as a favour as we were doing it anyway.

Now we have tenants in, the neighbour’s son - who is currently living with his mother - has contacted me asking us to get a gardener in to trim the bushes on his mother’s side.

My question is: is this our responsibility? There’s a requirement in the tenancy agreement that the tenants must keep the garden tidy. So it might come under that.
Or is it up to my neighbours to trim the bushes on their side?

(There’s no question, by the way, that the bushes are ours)

Any advice gratefully received (I’m keen to avoid paying for a gardener if I don’t have to - but obv will if it is our responsibility)

Legally theirs, morally yours I think. You choose to have bushes there, and to let them grow higher than the fence.

Op what is it going to cost? Twenty quid to hire a gardener for an hour? Is it really worth falling out over?

Yup, while @Delphigirl is legally right, it's hardly the neighbourly attitude to take. You have no idea if they have the tools/if the son is capable of doing it, and it's morally wrong to force the cost on them.

I've attached a pic of my neighbours overgrown hedge. Comes right over my path. Like I said above, it will cost me (a single mother on benefits) £60 to remove. PLUS I don't pay for the yearly garden waste collection, so the only way to get rid of garden rubbish is to put it in my car boot and drive there.

Legally, entirely my responsibility to deal with. Morally, my neighbours are being twats. Yes they love their hedge in their garden, but it's costing me money/time I don't have, and it's so unfair.

@selflove
We have the same situation here. I bought a cheap electric hedge trimmer for way less than £60, and it takes about 20 minutes two or three times a year to trim back a 30m long hedge.
Plants grow. No point in getting upset about it. Just hack it off.

@selflove
We have a couple of bushes from next door that grow over, I just use snips to cut it back takes about an hour to complete both. Trimmings get chopped and go into compost

@selflove

Watch a youtube video and trim the hedge back yourself. The branches are your neighbours' so bag them up and take them round for them to dispose of.

@selflove - you could ask your neighbour if you can put the hedge trimmings in their garden rubbish bin - if they are keen gardeners, they probably have one.

@selflove tell your neighbour you are cutting back and will drop the cuttings over the fence back to them as you have no way to dispose of them. They belong to them and you are ok to give them back once cut.

Tell them you don't know plants so will just hack them away, if they want it to be done in a particular way they are welcome to come and do it themselves.

I would reply with a cheery "Oh don't worry about damaging the bushes, just trim back what's in your garden" and leave it at that.