neighbours tree is starting to block the view of the valley from my house

bouicca21

Here is another scenario for ou. There is a house on a hill. Higher up the hill there is another. The higher house is so high up that the occupier can see right over a 12 foot hedge, so the only way to guarantee the privacy of the lower house and garden is to have a couple of tall trees as well. If the trees go or are substantially trimmed the occupier of the lower house loses his/her privacy. How does that affect the value of his/her house?

Idiophreak

bouicca21 wrote: »

Here is another scenario for ou. There is a house on a hill. Higher up the hill there is another. The higher house is so high up that the occupier can see right over a 12 foot hedge, so the only way to guarantee the privacy of the lower house and garden is to have a couple of tall trees as well. If the trees go or are substantially trimmed the occupier of the lower house loses his/her privacy. How does that affect the value of his/her house?

An overlooked property is worth less than a non-overlooked property.

But what you're talking about here is having trees there already.

It's quite simple. If there's a tree already, when you buy the house, you've paid for a house that isn't overlooked. If you cut down the trees, you'll reduce the value of your own home and likely add to the value of the neighbour's property.

If, on the other hand, there are no trees to start with and you grow some. You get the benefit of no longer being overlooked, so your house price rises...and your neighbour loses their view..so their house price reduces.

So you've effectively stolen some of the value of your neighbour's property.

moneyistooshorttomention

DirectDebacle wrote: »

Depends on what the view is of.

Op exercised poor buying judgement by placing more importance to the view than the actual bricks and mortar. Now suffering buyers remorse.

Op needs to decide whether it is better to stay put, accept loss of view and perceived price reduction of the property or cut losses and sell up. Purely a money saving exercise.

More a case of "We all want what we have paid for" and this applies to houses as well. If we paid for a house with a view, then we wish it to keep that view (otherwise we haven't "got what we paid for"). I can relate to that because, when I came to get a recent valuation on my last house I found the EA wasn't quoting me a price that included the price premium I had paid for the area. I soon turned round and said "What about my area price premium?" and got told "So and so households took it, when they took the area downhill from good to average".

I can sympathise also because vendor of my current house didn't see fit to mention a noticeable expense imminent on the horizon. I didn't "sign up for" that expense, so I wont be paying it. Reason being, if I had known about it, then I would have reduced my offer accordingly. As it wasn't mentioned by vendor, then its their bill and either they pay or no-one pays is my view. Looks like no-one will be paying then...(as I paid a property price that didn't take that into account).

Idiophreak

rustyboy21 wrote: »

That is what I have agreed with you. If there were 2 houses , Identical and next door to each other, one with a view, one without, The one with the view would be more preferable, so common sense dictates that it may be more expensive. But the chances of that arising in the real world, apart from new build, is very slim. 2 houses next door to each other in a well established road being up for sale at the same time would be very, very slim. I would be questioning if there were other issues going on in that road, if that arose, rather than just a tree. I already gave this scenario in my previous post.

I think you missed the point...The chances of there being two houses exactly the same with or without a view is 100% - the OPs house had a view. Now, the *identical* house doesn't.

Which is worth more?

If you accept that it's worth less now it has no view, I don't really understand what your problem is.

rustyboy21 wrote: »

But it doesn't take away the fact that in the OP case, anyone viewing their house, doesn't know that there is a beautiful view the other side of the tree, as they most likely never seen the view before, so the chance of a depreciation on the asking price wont come from that point.

It *really* doesn't matter if they know what's behind the tree or not. They'll pay what they think the house is worth without a view...as that's what they're buying. If this is less than they would have paid for the same house with a view, the OP has lost money.

rustyboy21

Idiophreak wrote: »

I think you missed the point...The chances of there being two houses exactly the same with or without a view is 100% - the OPs house had a view. Now, the *identical* house doesn't.

Which is worth more?

If you accept that it's worth less now it has no view, I don't really understand what your problem is.



But it is an impossible scenario as there is no way you can quantify this without being in two different dimensions at the same time ! You cant show the house with the tree being there, and then say to the vendor ' Hang on' run outside chop the tree down and then ask them again what they prefer ! The art of selling a property is to promote the benefits and not talk about the negatives. If you cannot do that, you should have the estate agent doing the visits. Only an idiot would turn around and say'' I used to have a lovely view of the valley, unitl that sod next door wouldn't chop his tree down. I wish he was dead ! ''


It *really* doesn't matter if they know what's behind the tree or not. They'll pay what they think the house is worth without a view...as that's what they're buying. If this is less than they would have paid for the same house with a view, the OP has lost money.

The vendor will pay what they think the house is worth full stop, it wont be the view that puts the mockers on it, it will be the state of the kitchen, will have to do the bathroom up, it stinks of cats, The next door neighbours look like chavs etc, The tree will be the last thing on the list, as they haven't seen the view without it !

Paradigm

Jnelhams wrote: »

or hope that someone in a delivery lorry reverses into it.

I actually did that some years ago

I said the truck wouldn't fit, he said it would & would watch me back in.

Result= One "something" tree at a crazy angle!

Idiophreak

rustyboy21 wrote: »

The vendor will pay what they think the house is worth full stop, it wont be the view that puts the mockers on it, it will be the state of the kitchen, will have to do the bathroom up, it stinks of cats, The next door neighbours look like chavs etc, The tree will be the last thing on the list, as they haven't seen the view without it !

So they'll look around the house and they'll say "look at the state of the kitchen...we'd better offer £5k less to account for fixing that up"

"ooh, the bathroom's a bit shoddy, let's take another couple of grand off the price for that"

"you know what? the whole place stinks of cats...let's get a deep clean done, -£1500"

"not sure about the neighbourhood..the neighbours look like trouble! -£10k"

Yeah, you're right...all of these things reduce the value of a home...but then the buyer will also normally do something like this:

"you know what...the master bedroom's lovely, much nicer than any others I've seen...I'd pay a couple more grand to live there"

"love the block paving on the driveway, saves us a job...that's got to be worth a couple of grand extra"

"nice big garage, would save us paying for our storage locker, so that's worth a couple of grand"

"oh..and look at that view...that's really something special, really sets the house apart from other ones we've seen, that's worth paying £xxxx more for!"

So there are some things that detract from the value and others that add to the value...not having something that adds to the value can have just as much impact on the overall value as having something that detracts from it.

rustyboy21

Normal mentality of buyers is that they will deduct from the asking price, for things that will need doing, but wouldn't Add on to the asking price for things they like. All they will do is say, that great it has a new, modern kitchen, saves us doing it and think that the price asked is better than it initially was. They will deduct off the price, mainly because they can, they are offering to buy the property.

The thing is, that you cannot guarantee that if you are buying a house and there is a great view of valleys, fields, cows lolloping around in the fields, the sun rising early over the hills etc, that it will always stay the same.

More and more, the planners are being instructed to approve building on sites like this, as we need to build over 2 million homes in the next 20 years, to cope with the increase in population ( over 400,000 in last 12 months). The green land we are used to is being slowly eroded and turned into homes and estates and there isn't really much you can do about it. Planting a tree and having it grow, to obstruct someone else's view, will be quite low down on the planners list of priorities, if there at all.


The issue the OP has, is that they have gone about it in a totally haphazard manner. It sounds like they jumped up and down on the neighbour and got his back up. They have wished him dead and are not taking into account the views from other posters that they have gone about it in the wrong way. The tree does not seem to be doing any harm yet if ever to the house, so the chances of any legal remedy seem to be nil. I am in a different situation to them. I have 6 very large trees in my garden which are going to come down this year, when I get my garden landscaped. They create for me a lot of privacy, but I feel they are too close to ours and other properties, so I have been given the ok to take them down and will be having fencing put up instead. One neighbour isn't happy as it will lose them some privacy, but she has agreed that it is better them coming down than landing on her house , if we have storms like we had last year. I negotiated politely with all the neighbours and didn't go at it like a bull in a china shop like the OP seems to have done.


At no time, however, did I think they will increase the prices of our houses. They are trees, they have been there longer than any of us have been, but they have been neglected, have grown awkwardly and the pear tree is diseased, so it is better if it comes down.

Davesnave

rustyboy21 wrote: »

The thing is, that you cannot guarantee that if you are buying a house and there is a great view of valleys, fields, cows lolloping around in the fields, the sun rising early over the hills etc, that it will always stay the same.

Actually, I can, but if that view were to go, I'd be far too rich to worry about the loss of it. :rotfl:

However, my other view could be built on at any time. The farmer has a couple of 150' barns close by, and if he wanted another, he wouldn't even need planning permission. All he'd need to do is inform the council 2 weeks before he intended to start. There are, indeed, worse things than trees.

Needless to say, I get on very well with him!

Idiophreak

rustyboy21 wrote: »

The thing is, that you cannot guarantee that if you are buying a house and there is a great view of valleys, fields, cows lolloping around in the fields, the sun rising early over the hills etc, that it will always stay the same.

No, of course you can't guarantee that the view will always be there...the world keeps turning and all that. But that doesn't mean you don't pay more for it in the first place.