Bill from neighbours for tree damage

spacey2012

Who:
Who has given you this bill, the neighbour or the tree bloke.

This is quite important.

betsie

We are not looking for a dispute, we just want to pay what it would have cost us to get the trees removed if they had given us a chance to do so.

betsie

The neighbour has given us the bill, it says paid written on it in pen with todays date.

wendym

It sounds to me as if they are Exclusive Brethren, an offshoot of the relatively reasonable Plymouth Brethren.

You could try to confuse them by insisting that all business and/or discussions must be between the women involved. They don't speak full stop.

betsie

We hardly see the wife, I think she is only allowed to cook and make babies, she only goes out to pick the kids up from school. Even the weekly shop is delivered, so she musn't be allowed to go to the supermarket.

Yorkie1

OP, reading what you've said it sounds as though you never agreed to cut the trees down. Lopping indicates taking the tops out, to me.

The neighbour has gone way beyond any verbal discussions you have had, and indeed taking them out completely is contrary to what they originally asked and you agreed to.

They have failed to ask your permission to chop down your trees and, yes, that is criminal damage despite you being available to approach.

They have failed to agree any costs with you before doing this.

I agree with others' posts about getting a comparative quote just to see how much they may (or may not) have inflated the invoice.

But assuming it's not too much out of the ball park, I'd be minded to pay 10%. That's going halves on the first tree which came down, and nothing for the other 4 trees (i.e. the remaining 80%).

Another poster has mentioned a neighbour dispute and that is something to consider, but at present it's not one and I don't see why you should pay what might be an inflated price because they didn't bother to check with you first.

If the price is actually favourable, then think what you'd have paid for lopping. But I certainly wouldn't be paying the whole amount.

betsie

My OH has phoned the tree man who is removing the other 4 remaining leylandi for us - he said he would have charged us £300 to do the same job (he works for himself and is not a large company - unlike the Neighbours tree people so there bill also included VAT).
We have asked him to provide us with a letter to this effect. I then propose to write to next door explaining that if he had given us a chance to sort out the fallen /falling trees it would have cost us £300 (enclosing our tree mans letter) and enclose a cheque for this sum.

claire16c

I wouldn't have given them anything.

They decide to just go round chopping your trees down without permission including ones in your garden?

The money is their problem. They sound crazy!

What's next? Washing your car then sending you an invoice? Coming home one day your house has been painted and a bill waiting for you?

betsie

One tree had completely fallen across their front garden so that did have to be removed that morning and the other 3 would also have had to go within a couple of days as the roots were quite lifted.
So we accept that the trees had to go, we are just not happy they did it without giving us a chance to sort it out ourselves and they used a very expensive tree firm (who were family friends!).

claire16c

So that's their problem then.

There is no excuse for them not asking you to pick a firm, fair enough pay them a reasonable amount for the tree on their garden but if they chose to chop the other ones down that were on your garden -that they asked you to keep! Then that's illegal so a joke to then give you a bill!