Neighbours broke our fence!

[Stevie1983]

The neighbours behind us had a massive conifer tree that they hired a 'professional' tree surgeon to chop down. The so called professional felled several very large branches into my and the next door neighbour's garden, breaking two fence panels and also damaging some mature shrubs in my garden. Fyi I had not been notified that this was going to happen.

The tree surgeon and his assistants then leap frogged into my and next door's garden without asking us at all, and started chainsawing the branches and chucking them back onto the other side. Whilst all this was happening, I was in the front room so didn't witness anything. As I walked into the back, I noticed and went outside to ask what the hell they were doing! They said not to worry, they will replace the fence the following day and remove all the branches. I wasn't super thrilled they hadn't bothered to knock or ask.

Later, me and my next door neighbour went to talk to the tree surgeons and the neighbour behind us who was chopping down the tree. I asked the tree surgeon why nobody notified us, and that there could have been somebody in the garden so surely it was really unsafe? He then got super aggressive at me and started shouting about his credentials and how incredibly offended he was that I was worried he may hurt somebody with falling branches. Fyi my garden is quite bushy so a small child or dog could have been resting or playing under a bush and not in clear sight from across the fence.

I'm not an aggressive person myself (also the guy was about a foot and a half taller than me), plus after speaking to the neighbour he assured us he would sort it and a new fence put up the next day.

The next day it wasn't done. My partner and the next door neighbour went over to ask the offending neighbour what was going on, and he then assured us the fence would be fixed on Monday morning. Again, we were the ones who had to chase to get information.

Still not done.

What should our next steps be? It is a huge inconvenience to us at the moment as we have a dog that we have had to blockade away from the missing fences to avoid him going into next door's garden. I am starting to feel like the offending neighbour is taking is for a bit of a ride. I didn't manage to get the tree surgeon's company name but we did get the vehicle registration, turns out it is untaxed. The whole thing feels super dodgy.

Any advice?

@IM0GEN thank you for your reasoned response, good timing as we have just written out a ranty letter! As we have already spoken to him nicely twice, we are going to do this in writing (paper trail!) But keep it light. Very good point about neighbourhood disputes. We have only just moved here and are woefully inexperienced FTBs!

If they are the travellers who did the job...forget it...you wont get any money back and go ahead and report the van but nobody will deal with them....they stole my friends van...police knew where it was but wouldnt go onto the site to help at all...too dangerous...proceed with caution if you track down the tree people.

@earsup
That is awful about your friend's van! We will leave the neighbour to deal with the workmen. I don't feel comfortable myself after the exchange I had with the contractor. I don't think they were travellers (just a horrible man with a very London / Essex accent) but I suppose it can be difficult to tell sometimes.

Update, we sent a polite letter but still no reply, fence panel not fixed, 'tree surgeons' came back again and removed another fence panel for no good reason and broke our keter storage box! there was a slight altercation with my DP and the neighbour / tree surgeon so we sent an updated letter with additional costs.

Took a look at our damaged shrub / tree just now and it's so ugly compared to before! It was a beautiful purple smoke tree and now it's dropping with about 6 large broken branches. It also can no longer support itself Ofc now the tree surgeon is totally denying he damaged it (even though its right next to the broken fence
/broken box etc) I feel totally bullied by these men!

Fyi I am OP!

Fuck the no reply. I’d be over talking to the neighbours.

Those people are no more tree surgeons than fly in the air.

I would be absolutely fuming.

And if the professionals didn’t make good, then the neighbours would be.

They might wish they’d paid for a proper tree surgeon as it would have worked out far cheaper.

I’d something similar a few years back with a neighbour’s garden project. So much damage to my property, my garden used as a dumping ground and as a toilet.

They now desperately need access from my garden for an extension.

Over my cold dead body after the attitude I got previously and how long they took to make half arsed amends.

It was a beautiful purple smoke tree

If it is Cotinus, just cut off the broken bits and give it a tidy up and some manure in the early spring. I knew someone who used to cut them back to a stump every year. They grow well.

This scenario happened to us. Except it was the neighbours builder drilling giant holes through the concrete gravel boards at the bottom of our fence. We immediately confronted them and their builder promised to "make good". The builder claimed he thought the gravel board was thicker and he wasn't drilling all the way through. He shouldn't have been drilling anything to them full stop! He came round and slapped some interior quality polyfiller on the concrete holes. It was awful and a completely different colour to the concrete.

We had only just moved to the area and were wary of creating some sort of neighbour issue. Our neighbour seemed genuinely embarrassed and the builders seemed incompetent. The builder was saying he would come back and replace the gravel boards the following week...but we would have been out at work, he would have been in our garden unattended and we had no assurance that the gravel boards would be of similar quality as the previous ones. In the end weighing it up we decided to just "leave it" ....much to our annoyance. It was bloody irritating though and even with us filling and "professionally" concreting the holes it never looked the same again.

Ever since that incident I always watch any neighbours builders like a hawk. It is amazing what they think they can get away with when you are not looking. We also got CCTV to cover our garden and driveway.

So no real advice other than keep a very very close eye on any future works and maybe consider some CCTV to capture further incidents.

OP, take lots of pictures in case you need to take this to the small claims court. Tell your neighbour that unfortunately you may have to do so if they don't put right the damage. It is on THEM, not the business they employed.

@Willow19C thanks for the tip, we have sooo many photos and we also set up a camera looking into the garden which caught the tree surgeon felling a branch into our garden and squashing the tree / breaking the box

@thekaratekid I think we are now also going to be forever suspicious of any works done by that neighbour! It's so horrible that you have to assume the worst because of selfish, apathetic and incompetent individuals isn't it! We are also new to the neighbourhood and really didn't want to be making enemies so early on, but it feels a little like the time for forgiveness has passed. We are preparing details for small claims in the event they don't make good after the latest letter

@Melroses thank you for this, it's a bit of a relief to hear it'll grow back okay. Would you recommend leaving it how it is at the moment or cutting off the snapped branches now? It looks a right eye sore 😂

@SheldonesqueTheBstard as a toilet?!? 🤮 How disgusting! You are absolutely correct holding out on them using the garden. Stay strong!

We are also thinking about growing bamboo at the back of our garden in planters as a privacy screen, the neighbours clearly wanted the tree down to let more light in but at the expense of our privacy so, tree goes down, bamboo goes up 😂😂😂 I definitely would be feeling a lot less petty if they hadn't been such CFs to begin with!

Yes - cut of the broken bits now, then prune into shape Feb/March.

We usually give ours a tidy after flowering and in the autumn as we try and keep it small.

Can you not get your house insurance to deal with this on your behalf? X