Neighbour's tree fallen into Dad's garden

Greenlight77

Not sure if this is the right forum but here goes

An old and largely dead crab apple tree about 15-20 ft tall which was in my dad's neighbour's garden, close to their adjoining fence has fallen down in the winds and crashed into my dad's garden. It has damaged the fence and some of his plants and there is obviously a lot of mess in his garden now which will need to be sorted out and the tree removed. We believe that the fence in question is owned by my dad.

The neighbour who is also elderly is sympathetic but has basically distanced herself and said she can't do anything to sort it out. Obviously we can help try and remove the tree but both my DH and myself have bad backs at the moment so want to avoid clearing it ourselves if possible! Question is if we get someone in to do it and also repair the fence whose legally liable to pick up the bill? My dad doesn't want to upset his neighbour but he's not got that much ready money at the moment. We will pay if need be but in principle don't see why we should when it wasn't my dad's tree that caused the damage.

Any thoughts? thanks

hartcjhart

it is up to the neighbour how it is paid for, either out of their own pocket or house insurance,get a local contractor in to give a quote

anotherbaldrick

Suggest to the neighbour that it would be nice if she removed her tree from your Dad's garden , but that if she is not minded to common law decrees that you may not deprive her of the same and you would have no option but to return it over the fence to her

phill99

You need to put a claim on your dads household insurance who will in turn recover the costs from the neighbours insurance.

keystone

anotherbaldrick wrote: »

Suggest to the neighbour that it would be nice if she removed her tree from your Dad's garden

Agreed and if the nice approach doesn't work you might remind her that her tree is committing a trespass.

that you may not deprive her of the same and you would have no option but to return it over the fence to her

Indeed you may not deprive her of her property but equally you are not allowed to just deposit it back in her garden. You must offer it to her which offer she is at liberty to decline and if so you must bear the burden (physical or financial) of disposal.

Cheers

keystone

phill99 wrote: »

You need to put a claim on your dads household insurance who will in turn recover the costs from the neighbours insurance.

Agreed but it would be simper if she organised the work via her own insurance directly sothat there is no claim on your insurance whatsoever. The problem then is that she may be slow going about it. And I'm not too sure why you should be too worried about upsetting her - its her tree which is trespassing on your dad's property and her tree which has wrecked his fence and planting. I would say it was him who had a right to be upset TBH.

Cheers

macman

It's entirely your neighbour's responsibility, even more so if the tree is dead, as she could have anticipated that it might fall. I would write to her and give her 7 days to remove the tree and make good the fence, otherwise say you will put it in the hands of your insurers to recover your costs.
If she is not personally able to deal with it, it's up to her to get her own insurers to deal with it, so find out who they are.
If uninsured, you will have to take a civil action against her to recover damages.

googler

phill99 wrote: »

You need to put a claim on your dads household insurance who will in turn recover the costs from the neighbours insurance.

I'll second this one. And if the neighbour has no insurance, I'm sure your dad's insurance co will be happy to claim against her in the courts, and will be more familiar with the process than your Dad.

Greenlight77

Thanks everyone for your replies. I was assuming that insurance wouldn't cover fences but checking my own insurance policy it does cover fences if they are damaged by fallen trees (not if they were damaged by storms). I'll get my dad to contact his insurers and put in a claim/get her to claim on hers.

He didn't want to cause any upset with his neighbour has she recently lost her husband but I think if he says they should just refer it to their insurers to sort it out then that will be the solution

TonyMMM

The neighbour will only be liable if she has been negligent ...i.e. she was told the tree was unsafe, and chose to do nothing about it.

27col

Although the insurance might cover the cost of the fence are you sure that it will cover the cost of cutting up the tree, I suspect that it would not. It would be as well to check with the insurers. In any event, the excess is likely to be more than the cost of a new fence panel.