Neighbour has cut down 7 of my trees!

ljbnotts

Hi,

Just wondered if anyone had any advice,

Here is our story:

In May 2018 our neighbour came round and said they wanted to trim the overhanging leylandi branches on their side. They said they had hired a contractor and would trim the branches to Lampost height. (They are mature tall trees ). We agreed this would be ok. They asked if we wanted the branches and we said no.

There is no boundary line dispute as the trees are on our side of the fence.

In August 2018 when we were on holiday the work was carried out. Except the contractors have stumped 7 of our trees and trimmed over the boundary line to the trunk, so there are no branches or twigs remaining, They then proceeded to dump the branches over the fence onto 2 established bamboo trees that have killed them.

When we returned from holiday we went round to the neighbour and asked what had happened. They agreed that they would rectify it and that it wasn't as agreed.

We have since found out that the contractor has no insurance.

We had an independent tree surgeon to look at the damage and made a police report. The independent tree surgeon said that due to the brutal hacking of the trees that the full row of leylandi are now dying as they have been put under enormous stress.

We have asked for the the 7 trees that have been stumped to be ground down and replanted with mature trees. We have also asked for the full row of trees that are dying to be ground down and replaced. We are also asking for some compensation due to the stress of the ongoing situation (3 months and counting) and loss of privacy to our garden.

We have since heard from our neighbours liability insurance that they do not feel they are liable, and we should pursue a complaint with the contractors.

We feel they are liable as they failed to supervise the work and check the contractor was insured. We never spoke to the contractor beforehand and if we had known that they were not insured we wouldn't have agreed to the work.

Does anyone have any advice? We do not feel that its fair that they do not have to rectify the situation and we are left with the hassle and expense of rectifying it. The contractor has said that he has sacked the person who did it and we can have his name and address to sue him personally. As they have no insurance this is unlikely to get us anywhere.

Our next step is to contact our house insurance for legal advice. We changed our insurance company in October, so i feel this is going to cause problems. As our neighbour agreed to rectify the situation we didn't realise we would need legal cover for this issue. Our neighbour is a Church.

Help!

Many thanks for any advice,

LJBNOTTS

Doozergirl

Lleylandi. The beautiful, well considered choice for all boundary treatments and the sound basis for any good relationship between neighbours.

moneyistooshorttomention

I've never heard of householders (or their insurance companies) being held legally liable for the standard of work their contractors do.

You can check with a solicitor - but my suspicion would be that they would also tell you that it was down to the contractor and not your neighbour.

baza52

EachPenny

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I've never heard of householders (or their insurance companies) being held legally liable for the standard of work their contractors do.

You can check with a solicitor - but my suspicion would be that they would also tell you that it was down to the contractor and not your neighbour.

I would have thought that if A employs a contractor to carry out work and that work causes B some form of loss then A has a liability in law to compensate B.

A's contractor might have insurance which pays B directly, but in the absence of that then A still has liability, and has an option of taking legal action against their contractor to recover any payment they have made to B.

That would appear to be a fairly standard third-party liabilty situation, in which a householder is liable for injury, loss, or damage caused by themselves or their employees or 'servants'.

But I'm not a lawyer.

The issue is not necessarily the 'standard of work' done by the contractors, but the loss the OP has suffered (which includes the costs of putting right the damage done to their property)

trailingspouse

It's not a householder that's being held liable - it's the owners of the land, who happen to be a Church.

They really should have insurance cover for Act of God...


Just because the contractor isn't insured doesn't mean he's not liable. You take out insurance (or at least you should do) to cover you for your liabilities - but the liabilities still stand even if you don't have the insurance. The simplest solution would be for you to have the work carried out, then sue the contractor for the cost through the small claims court. But at the end of the day, if he can't afford to pay you back, then he can't afford to pay you back - you need to decide if it's worth the effort. Don't be fobbed off by them saying you should sue the workman - you sue them, they can then sue him to recover their costs (again, if they think it's worth the effort - but that's not your problem).



And joking apart, I would be extremely annoyed by this too - there's a world of difference between 'trim a few branches' and 'chop down 7 trees'.

PasturesNew

To keep it brief:

Forget all the nonsense about loss of privacy and stress... stick to the facts.

Just the trees/replacement, to bring it in line with "as agreed"

Your beef is with your neighbour. You have the relationship with the neighbour and the verbal agreement.

Your neighbour's beef is with his contractor. He had the contract with the butcher.

You sue your neighbour ..... he sues his contractor.

Rosemary7391

EachPenny wrote: »

I would have thought that if A employs a contractor to carry out work and that work causes B some form of loss then A has a liability in law to compensate B.

A's contractor might have insurance which pays B directly, but in the absence of that then A still has liability, and has an option of taking legal action against their contractor to recover any payment they have made to B.

That would appear to be a fairly standard third-party liabilty situation, in which a householder is liable for injury, loss, or damage caused by themselves or their employees or 'servants'.

But I'm not a lawyer.

The issue is not necessarily the 'standard of work' done by the contractors, but the loss the OP has suffered (which includes the costs of putting right the damage done to their property)

Would it not be possible for the OP to claim against both the neighbour and the contractor, and let the court figure out liability?



I don't think it makes any legal difference that your neighbour is a church btw. Maybe a practical difference in that you're likely dealing with a committee who have to have meetings etc about everything so that might delay their responses. But as a landowner their legal responsibility should be the same as a normal neighbour.



Just out of interest how much would the proposed work cost? Because the other thing you need to consider when taking action is if the folk you're suing can afford to pay.

Davesnave

You cannot claim compensation for stress or loss of privacy, as those are not quantifiable losses.

As to who's responsible, it seems the company who employed the errant 'tree surgeon' is, whether they have insurance or not. They can't pass the buck to him if the church contract was with them. You have no contract at all so you have to go after the church. Not a great prospect. Maybe a small claim?

If this had happened to me, I'd take the opportunity to re-landscape with trees that might enhance my property, rather than ones that usually scare people or look funereal.

As the church next door now has a view into the garden and hasn't shown much sympathy, I might also add an erotic statue to remind church-goers that it's not only God who can move in mysterious ways. With luck, they might soon negotiate to have it re-located.;)

EachPenny

ljbnotts wrote: »

We have since heard from our neighbours liability insurance that they do not feel they are liable, and we should pursue a complaint with the contractors.

Personally I think they are wrong to say you should pursue a complaint with the contractors, but I agree with the bit in bold because as you say:-

ljbnotts wrote: »

We feel they are liable as they failed to supervise the work and check the contractor was insured. We never spoke to the contractor beforehand and if we had known that they were not insured we wouldn't have agreed to the work.

In terms of standard insurance cover, no insurer is going to accept liability for something which was caused through avoidable errors (some might argue negligence) on the part of the insured.

It might be forgivable for a normal householder not to think about checking their contractor's insurance cover, but an organisation like a church should do this as a matter of routine.

ljbnotts wrote: »

The contractor has said that he has sacked the person who did it and we can have his name and address to sue him personally.

I think they have got this wrong. The contractor is responsible for the work carried out by their employees, and should have appropriate insurance cover in place. Tree work is dangerous, what if a tree they were cutting down fell and caused someone life-changing injuries? If the company have opted not to be insured for those risks then they have to accept liability themselves.

Do you know the status of the company? Is it a limited company for example?

Davesnave

trailingspouse wrote: »

They really should have insurance cover for Act of God...

Are you saying the contractor employed God?