How to broach neighbouring tree

Slinky

My Dad had a neighbour from the adjoining street try and claim his fruit trees were causing cracking to the neighbour's garage. The trees were at least 30 feet from the garage. The fruit trees predated the neighbour's house and garage by at least 30 years, probably longer. Dad had several letters from their insurance company, refused to give details of his insurance, and wrote several 'not my problem' replies. The letters eventually stopped and the garage was repaired either by the neighbour or their own insurance company.

Xplosivgas

Thanks for all the useful comments. An earlier poster had it right that its more the risk of tree-related movement than leaves falling on our side that's of concern.

I think I may have put a few posters noses out of joint with the tone of my OP. I should say that I do like the look of the tree and I did notice it at the time I bought the house. It was comments from family and friends after moving in that kind of worried me. In the survey the tree was noted as it's about 4-5 meters from the house - however there were no comments that concerned me - only that it could affect the wall which is closer to the tree than the house.

I will at some point introduce myself to the neighbours and ask about cutting the overhanging branches as they do get into the guttering. However it'd be hard to get friendly with them (as someone suggested) before raising this as they live on a different street it's just their garden backs onto the side of my house.

Anyway, as things stand my house appears unaffected by the tree and it's reassuring to know we should be able to extend in the future irrespective of the tree by using appropriately deep foundations.

Soot2006

Fair play, OP!



To be fair, I have some tall trees, one of which overshadows a neighbour behind me quite significantly. I had never met the neighbour when they came knocking on my door to discuss the tree. They wanted to put a permanent BBQ with decking, etc., in that corner of their garden. The tree overshadows everything. They approached much in the way of a stray dog that wants a crumb of your cookie - very apologetic, acknowledging it was a cheeky request to reduce my tree just for their convenience, etc .... After thinking about it, we gave permission for them to contact a landscaper/tree surgeon who has rescaped the tree to less than half its size without damaging it. Two years later I have to admit it looks a lot better than it did!


Different issue as you were more concerned about roots, but I think it exemplifies that even us tree people (and I LOVE my trees, having grown most of them from cuttings and personal memories attached to many) can be reasonable ....


(the BBQ invitations and actually getting to know my neighbours was a bonus!)