Neighbour has cut down 7 of my trees!

paddy's_mum

You have more patience than I would be showing by this point!

They have had since August to do something about this and are still dragging their feet.

Exactly why are they waiting to convene a committee meeting? To suit themselves or to delay responding in the hope that you might shut up and go away? Have they never heard of convening an Extraordinary Meeting?

In your shoes, I'd be making it very clear that if nothing is permanently resolved by the end of January (six months down the line since the original problem :mad:) I will be taking legal action against them without any further communication or consultation.

And then without hesitation I would start proceedings...!

What are they waiting for - another miracle? :A

Davesnave

Agree with the sentiment, paddy's mum, but getting any action from the church at this time of the year would be like trying to get a builder in.



They'll be far too busy, doing good works.

chunkytfg

I'd have thought Xmas would be the perfect time to get stuff done! they can hardly claim to be closed for Xmas!! haha

SandraX

PasturesNew wrote: »

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.

Just to add, be prepared to be awkward neighbours. They can sue the contractors via small claims easier route and then purse via baliffs for monies. I'm guessing that people like that are fly by night people that also specialise in drives and roofing:(

Rosemary7391

chunkytfg wrote: »

I'd have thought Xmas would be the perfect time to get stuff done! they can hardly claim to be closed for Xmas!! haha

No, but they do have quite a lot of other stuff on... and it's quite usual for ministers to take some time off just after Christmas. Also, many of the relevant committee members might be traveling over Christmas - remember that they're just ordinary folk in the main, with ordinary jobs etc.



I'd suggest that the OP enjoys their Christmas and New Year, and pencil in to chase them up a few days into January you should at least find out when they're scheduled to meet. You might also ask that, in the event they decline your proposal, they give a small group authority to negotiate with you so this can be resolved more quickly (ie not waiting on the next full committee meeting). We do this and it is pretty effective, but not every church has this as a standard thing. I guess the key thing is to make it clear you need a resolution agreed by a specific date.

ljbnotts

Hi,

Just an update.

We finally reached a resolution with the Church/Contractors.

The contractors have now removed all the trees along the row as they were either stumped or dying. The Church has agreed to pay for a new fence along both our boundaries.

The work is ongoing at the moment and the garden looks like a bombsite. We think we have got used to the trees not being there, hopefully when the fence is installed it will be better.

At least now there will be no future problems with branches being trimmed! Once the fence work is complete and the stumps ground out we will think about what to plant in the Leyllandi's place.

Thanks for all your comments and advice. It hasn't been a quick process and i wouldn't wish it on anyone!

Thanks,

LJB

paddy's_mum

Thank you so much for posting up how this was resolved. It can be frustrating to follow a story for weeks or months but never hear the outcome.

As for what to plant there to replace the original butchered trees....well, it's got to be Holy Thorn, hasn't it?!

Davesnave

paddy's_mum wrote: »

As for what to plant there to replace the original butchered trees....well, it's got to be Holy Thorn, hasn't it?!

A Judas tree (Cercis siliquastrum) would go well too and look great at this time of year.