Boundary Trees

Hi all. Just a few questions/opinions please.
We have a shelter belt that runs the entire length of our property . It is made up of various types of conifers and has only been trimmed under the power lines -the rest is the au natural look. There are 3 other properties that share this boundary. One lot of neighbours have built 8 metres away (we gave them permission to build this close) from this boundary so obviously their sunlight is compromised,especially in winter when they don't get sun till early afternoon. They have asked us to trim and thin the shelter belt with no mention of how low and who pays !! The council do not get involved in this type if issue .
Our general thought is that they built there knowing our opinion re the trees -they had heaps of other building sites to choose from on their property. This shelter belt was well established when we bought the property many years ago and it our main shelter from the prevailing wind .

agree.. they knew it was there when they built..
who's land is it on?.. we a have a similar prob with a row of pines, used to be on our land until the neighbour requested a slight boundary change to make their drive wider.. now the trees are their problem..so i turn a deaf ear to complaints about the trees etc..
if the trees are on the boundary ( may need survey to confirm ).. then i would have thought the fairest thing would be for all who share that boundary to contribute to up keep of the trees..

The trees are on our land. The trees are in no need of up keep . They realise they are entitled to trim back any branches overhanging the fence and we are fine with that.

I agree with steph. They knew the trees were there before they built so tough luck. They made a mistake so get over it. Not your problem.

igor;388098 wrote: I agree with steph. They knew the trees were there before they built so tough luck. They made a mistake so get over it. Not your problem.

I realise that the gut-reaction to this question is that it's not the tree 'owners' problem but the neighbours, but the matter is actually not that simple.
This is a fairly common dispute and the best plan is always to get on with your neighbours if at all possible. At the moment they are only asking you to trim them - rather than removal.
Remember that revenge is a dish best served cold and you will eventually be treated to it.
Remember also, it is more than likely you versus the 'group' of neighbours.
They have a legal right to trim all encroaching branches. If the boundary isn't well-defined, this can mean whole trees can be removed. They can also, by law, force you to do all the trimming.
Additionally, they have redress if any roots enter their property.
Whether the trees existed before you bought the property and/or before they bought their properties is immaterial.
The best plan is to be friends and talk about it civilly, if possible. Solicitors get wealthy from the people who can't.

Ed

Like those dicks who bought houses next door to Western Springs Speedway and then bitched and moaned about the noise?
If googmeister's neighbours required their permission to build as close to the boundary as they have then that permission should be in writing as part of the building consent process. If googmeister's solicitor was any good the certainty of the trees shading the building will have been well documented at that time.

igor;388106 wrote: Like those dicks who bought houses next door to Western Springs Speedway and then bitched and moaned about the noise?
If googmeister's neighbours required their permission to build as close to the boundary as they have then that permission should be in writing as part of the building consent process. If googmeister's solicitor was any good the certainty of the trees shading the building will have been well documented at that time.

Just as a matter of interest Igor - did those 'dicks' at Western Springs win with their complaint, or did the speedway go on as it had for all those previous years?

Ed

There's also a huge difference between the property owners at Western Springs wanting to make a capital gain on their "cheap' properties and a neighbour who has limited sun in his yard.

Making the issue even more interesting too is the fact the council required them to excavate about 1.5 metres lower then our land for drainage reasons so the sun issue is even worse for them. We have lost one of the trees and the aborist who took it down thought the excavations may have contributed to it's demise.(i.e the roots were damaged ).

googmeister - I lived next door to a prat who did not trim his pines (we were both there over 20 years!) but this should be a two way street. Either way, if the trees are so big as to block their East and North sun, then are they not doing the same to you in reverse from the afternoon sun.

I agree with Ed. Go and ask them what they want, how low and agree - if they are going to arrange and pay for it to be done (professionally) with no trees/branches dropped/left on your property (or not) as there is nothing worse that not having morning sun let alone north sun until mid afternoon. It is so unhealthy for those people so can you not try and work this out together?

I would say, you are happy to trim them, after all, shelterbelts are best trimmed, you could ask them for a small contribution, and let that be the end to it.

Whatever you agree to is likely to set a precident so be warey of agreeing to what could well be a then expected and potentially increasingly severe pruning regime. The trees are yours to do with what you please and were there before the neighbour chose to go ahead with their construction thus causing the trees to become a problem.

Organix;388154 wrote: Whatever you agree to is likely to set a precident so be warey of agreeing to what could well be a then expected and potentially increasingly severe pruning regime. The trees are yours to do with what you please and were there before the neighbour chose to go ahead with their construction thus causing the trees to become a problem.

The highlighted area of Oranix post is something to take very seriously because once a precedent is set, it becomes very hard to turn it around.

These people knowingly and wittingly built their house where they did and many years after the trees had been planted. If it had been the other way around my view would be completely different. The neighbours have full legal right to deal with any overhang and root encroachment but it would be a bit on the nose to expect GM to foot the bill for trimming when the neighbours deliberately chose to build their home where they did.

GM, none of which helps you really with the problem. You can try to keep neighbourly relations by reaching some sort of compromise but I would suggest getting that compromise in writing to cover your own back if the problem should arise in the future - and it surely will because trees don't stop growing unless they are cut off at ground level.

God save me from idiotic neighbours:rolleyes:

Cheers,
Ronnie

I assume from what you've said Googmeister that the trees are on your Southwest -their NorthEast boundary, and can't help wondering what idiot would build a house close to a NE line of trees. Were they recent immigrants from the Northern Hemisphere perhaps? An easy mistake to make if you didn't think too hard about it. "Ooh look, those trees will block the cold Northerly....." I suspect they were also caught out by having to excavate so far. 1.5 metres would make a big difference close to trees.

You are not obliged to do anything, however I can't help feeling that compromise may be your best solution here. An unhappy neighbour can make your life difficult in all sorts of ways, and its really easy to poison trees in the middle of the night with a drill and a bottle of weedkiller. Also, an untrimmed au-natural shelterbelt of conifers may look nice now, but in 10 years it will be scraggly and thin at the bottom, and will not be an effective windbreak for you.

Maybe keep talking to the neighbours, point out that its a bit unfair if you have to spend money because of their mistake, and if they are any sort of reasonable people, they should offer to pay for all the trimming. I don't know that I'd agree to thinning, as that would compromise your wind-break. You then agree on a height that will give both of you what you need.

Good luck, and like Ronney said, God save me from idiotic neighbours.

Some people do have odd ideas about what they can expect their neighbours to do with respect to their property. We have one neighbour who insisted that another neighbour cut down a shelter belt (on their boundary) that would have been planted maybe 30 years ago, despite it being there when they bought their property and built their house. Currently we are in an argument with another neighbour who wishes to insist that we do not graze within 10 metres of their boundary (we are zoned rural ) and is inclined to either ring up screaming or send "loud" texts if our cows come any closer than this to their boundary. Bottom line in this case is that the wife is scared of the cows (three are jeseys) and thinks they will leap the fence and eat her (well that's our interpretation). We're saying that we have ownership rights on the entire property, that we have put outriggers on the boundary fence (checked it yesterday and from a battery unit it is pumping out 5.8kv), end of! If they do want that buffer, we have said that they will have to compensate us in feed and be responsbile for fencing it off and mowing it (otherwise it will be a fire hazard in the summer). Blooming nieghbours! We were city folk before moving here, so I hesitate to malign city folk, but there are a lot of people who seem to think that moving to the country means it will be quiet, odour free, sunny from all directions etc etc etc, and that they will have a right to these things. As I write there is a huge amount of noise here in Martinborough as the grapegrowers fight the frost - we knew about it when we bought, that's life. The only downside is that if we can here the turbines going, we know that it will be cold when we get out of bed.