What can I do about this tree?

Maureen43

My neighbour has a willow tree in his garden, right next to the fence between our two gardens and less than 3 metres from my back door.


When I moved in two years ago it was a reasonable height, and I have since had the tree pollarded on my side of the fence.


I hoped that might prompt my neighbour to get it pollarded on his side, but no. It is now massive, much taller than our houses, and slightly lopsided too as it has been pollarded on one side only.


I went round a few weeks ago and asked politely if they could get the tree pollarded due to its size. Their response was "We'll see about that". The tone used and the speedily shut door meant I interpreted that as "never".


Is there anything else I can do? Theirs is a council house so they are council tenants.


They have a history of being generally grumpy towards me (I have no idea why) and I really don't want to be on bad terms with them.


Can I approach the council?


Maureen

Lucy07

Contact the council!

DRP

If they are tenants then contact the owner. I doubt they are responsible or authorised to do anything major to the tree.

andrewf75

as above, its the council's responsibility

Gordon_Hose

Bear in mind that, just because you think it is too big, the council aren't at liberty to do anything to the tree either.

martinsurrey

Gordon_Hose wrote: »

Bear in mind that, just because you think it is too big, the council aren't at liberty to do anything to the tree either.

if the OP brings to the attention of the council thier belief that the tree is likely to cause damage to his property, and they dont monitor or rectify, and it causes damage, the OP will be in a much better position to sue for damages.

Procrastinator333

As a side point - be sure you have declared this on your insurance.....

We bought a house with a tree taller than the house within 5 metres of the house. We only found a handful of insures that would quote and it did add an extra £150 to the annual cost.

But if you have not specifically declared it you won't be covered for damage from the roots or the tree falling on the house etc....

Gordon_Hose

martinsurrey wrote: »

if the OP brings to the attention of the council thier belief that the tree is likely to cause damage to his property, and they dont monitor or rectify, and it causes damage, the OP will be in a much better position to sue for damages.

So they monitor it and still don't prune it. The tree may never cause damage to their property. Nothing has happened as far as the OP is concerned.

Just saying the council may not do what the OP wants them to do, which is prune the tree.

tanith

My brother lived backing onto a council park with Willow trees at the bottom of his garden. His house and both neighbours had subsidence caused by the trees, after a protracted length of time the councils insurers paid out more than 200K to underpin all 3 houses...
Get on to the council if its their property then I'm sure they will do something rather than have you claim against them for subsidence.

Now the council prune the trees regularly.

Tyler_Du

I have a similar thing with a neighbours trees that are now taller than the houses, they like the privacy it offers. Not much I can do as they own the property. Interesting regarding the insurance thing...

Maureen43

Thanks all. I will contact the council and mention the insurance issue.