Buying a property with an ancient weeping willow in situ?

Slimby

davidmcn - From my research they seem to live around 30 years so that was my thinking there haha

[Deleted User]

I would be surprised if a willow had any protective order on it as they're nothing special, they're rampant growers and in an urban setting require regular and hard pruning.
If you go ahead with the purchase i'd just get the chainsaw to it and get on with enjoying your new home.

Ramouth

I would check the wording of your conservation area before taking any drastic action.  In ours all trees above a certain trunk size (I.e. not saplings) are protected and require planning approval for removal or even significant pruning.

GDB2222

We are in a conservation area, and there are two categories of tree. A} trees with a TPO, B everything else. If the tree is in category B, we need to give 6 weeks notice to the council before chopping it down. 

Sadly, the willow described is simply in the wrong place and it needs to be removed. If you’re on clay, do this in stages to reduce heave.

You need to declare it for insurance applications, and it may well cause difficulties.

Do you need to buy this house?

Ramouth

It is odd that these things are not standardised.  I would have thought it would be easier for councils to adopt one set of rules.  

AdrianC

Slimby said:

davidmcn - From my research they seem to live around 30 years so that was my thinking there haha

They live a damn sight longer than that.
There was a huge mature one in the front garden of the house my parents moved to in 1980. It's still there.

daveyjp

My parents had a 50 year willow in the garden of their new home which they had removed.
It was a lovely tree and had plenty of space, but it was just unwieldy.
The problem since they removed it is the garden now floods in very heavy rain as the tree isn't extracting huge quantities of ground water.

GDB2222

daveyjp said:

My parents had a 50 year willow in the garden of there new home which they had removed.
It was a lovely tree and had plenty of space, but it was just unwieldy.
The problem since they removed it is the garden now floods in very heavy rain as the tree isn't extracting huge quantities of ground water.

That is why it was planted in the first place? 

AdrianC

There's a stretch not far from here where there's been a LOT of trees removed from farmland in the last year or two.

It's just along from the river. It floods regularly - including this week. I think somebody is going to be very, very sorry indeed in the near future.

Fortunately, the only house at risk is the farm.

Slinky

My brother's neighbour knocked down and rebuilt a much bigger house on the plot, connecting the new building into the existing soakaways without extending them. They also removed a lot of trees from the bottom of their garden.  A new neighbour behind both these properties started experiencing damp - his house is lower down the hill. He then started via solicitors writing harrassing letters to my brother complaining about the trees at the bottom of my brother's garden, accusing him of them being the source of damp in his house. Brother pointed out the problem was most likely the overloaded soakaways and removal of trees from next door.  Behind neighbour refused to accept this and continued to pester my brother to remove trees. For the sake of a quiet life (and most unlike my brother) he eventually gave in and removed some trees. Even the arboriculturist knew they weren't the problem.  Don't know what's happened to the damp problem, but I seriously doubt it's got better, more likely to have got worse.