Neighbours trees

Grumpelstiltskin

doodling said:

Hi,

Grumpelstiltskin said:

You have the right to cut back to your boundary any and all branches that are overhanging your garden.

You should return any cut branches to your neighbour as they are their property.

No one will advise you any different.

I will advise different.

You are entitled to cut up to the boundary.
You must offer the cuttings back to your neighbour.
If the neighbour doesn't want the cuttings then you must of dispose of them yourself.

Just dumping the cuttings on your neighbours land without permission would be covered by the laws relating to littering and fly tipping.

I think I could guarantee the police wouldn't be interested in charging you with fly tipping, they have more important things to do.

lookstraightahead

I don't want to hog the thread, sorry op, but the neighbour at the bottom of my garden cut back his hedge and left the branches that were on my side in my garden on the patio floor ... bless him 🤨.   Can I get rid of them or should I offer them back to him? 

To be fair I think he leant over to cut them down to make it nicer, so I'm not cross, just wondered what to do.

user1977

lookstraightahead said:

I don't want to hog the thread, sorry op, but the neighbour at the bottom of my garden cut back his hedge and left the branches that were on my side in my garden on the patio floor ... bless him 🤨.   Can I get rid of them or should I offer them back to him? 

If he wanted them back - do you not think he'd have asked? Unless you really want to get into an argument with your neighbour about whose garden waste it is, I would just deal with it however you like.

The whole "offering the offcuts back to your neighbour" thing might make sense if you were talking about potentially useful firewood or something, but it really doesn't matter otherwise. And where would you stop - sweep up "their" leaves from your garden and offer those back too?!

Niv

lookstraightahead said:

I don't want to hog the thread, sorry op, but the neighbour at the bottom of my garden cut back his hedge and left the branches that were on my side in my garden on the patio floor ... bless him 🤨.   Can I get rid of them or should I offer them back to him? 

To be fair I think he leant over to cut them down to make it nicer, so I'm not cross, just wondered what to do.

Honestly? I wouldn't. The advice to offer them to the neighbours is all well and good but we all know that 99.99% of people do not want them and in your case they could interpret it as you being miffed about them being left on your patio (which you say you are not).

doodling

Hi,

Grumpelstiltskin said:

doodling said:

Hi,

Grumpelstiltskin said:

You have the right to cut back to your boundary any and all branches that are overhanging your garden.

You should return any cut branches to your neighbour as they are their property.

No one will advise you any different.

I will advise different.

You are entitled to cut up to the boundary.
You must offer the cuttings back to your neighbour.
If the neighbour doesn't want the cuttings then you must of dispose of them yourself.

Just dumping the cuttings on your neighbours land without permission would be covered by the laws relating to littering and fly tipping.

I think I could guarantee the police wouldn't be interested in charging you with fly tipping, they have more important things to do.

The police wouldn't be interested as they are not responsible for enforcing the law in respect of fly tipping - that is generally the local council's job.  Whether the local council choose to do something about it is largely irrelevant, its still illegal.  The neighbour has various legal options open to them if they find you doing it (and, if ignoring the law is an option as you imply, various illegal ones).

I think generally people would refrain from dumping rubbish on their neighbours (even if it has come from the neighbour's trees) because:
a) its illegal and most people try to be law abiding; and
b) needlessly annoying the neighbours generally doesn't lead to happiness.

doodling

Hi,

lookstraightahead said:

I don't want to hog the thread, sorry op, but the neighbour at the bottom of my garden cut back his hedge and left the branches that were on my side in my garden on the patio floor ... bless him 🤨.   Can I get rid of them or should I offer them back to him? 

To be fair I think he leant over to cut them down to make it nicer, so I'm not cross, just wondered what to do.

In theory they are his and as he as cut them then he should have disposed of them, you could insist that he clears up his mess, or pay someone to do it and send him the bill.  I don't recommend the theoretical approach!

In reality, asking him to clear them up is probably over the top.  If you see him you can ask if he wants them, but unless you know of any reason why he is likely to want to keep them then binning them without asking should be fine.

TheScone

doodling said:

Hi,

lookstraightahead said:

I don't want to hog the thread, sorry op, but the neighbour at the bottom of my garden cut back his hedge and left the branches that were on my side in my garden on the patio floor ... bless him 🤨.   Can I get rid of them or should I offer them back to him? 

To be fair I think he leant over to cut them down to make it nicer, so I'm not cross, just wondered what to do.

In theory they are his and as he as cut them then he should have disposed of them, you could insist that he clears up his mess, or pay someone to do it and send him the bill.  I don't recommend the theoretical approach!

In reality, asking him to clear them up is probably over the top.  If you see him you can ask if he wants them, but unless you know of any reason why he is likely to want to keep them then binning them without asking should be fine.

This reminded me of last summer, our neighbour has some hedges on their side of our fence to the front of our house - they go all along the front of the neighbours house and then go alongside our drive to the side only about a metre (so not much compared to the rest of the hedge). Maybe 5% of the hedge that needs to be cut.  

They cut the whole thing last summer including what was growing over our drive, but then picked up all the foliage EXCEPT the mess on our drive?? I’m sure legally they’re fine doing that so we just cleared it up (admittedly after a few days since we were busy lol) but it just seemed so odd - they cleared up 95% of the mess and just left what was on our side. It would have added barely any time to their task to just collect that bit too 🤷🏼‍♀️

Reginald74

TheScone said:

doodling said:

Hi,

lookstraightahead said:

I don't want to hog the thread, sorry op, but the neighbour at the bottom of my garden cut back his hedge and left the branches that were on my side in my garden on the patio floor ... bless him 🤨.   Can I get rid of them or should I offer them back to him? 

To be fair I think he leant over to cut them down to make it nicer, so I'm not cross, just wondered what to do.

In theory they are his and as he as cut them then he should have disposed of them, you could insist that he clears up his mess, or pay someone to do it and send him the bill.  I don't recommend the theoretical approach!

In reality, asking him to clear them up is probably over the top.  If you see him you can ask if he wants them, but unless you know of any reason why he is likely to want to keep them then binning them without asking should be fine.

This reminded me of last summer, our neighbour has some hedges on their side of our fence to the front of our house - they go all along the front of the neighbours house and then go alongside our drive to the side only about a metre (so not much compared to the rest of the hedge). Maybe 5% of the hedge that needs to be cut.  

They cut the whole thing last summer including what was growing over our drive, but then picked up all the foliage EXCEPT the mess on our drive?? I’m sure legally they’re fine doing that so we just cleared it up (admittedly after a few days since we were busy lol) but it just seemed so odd - they cleared up 95% of the mess and just left what was on our side. It would have added barely any time to their task to just collect that bit too 🤷🏼‍♀️

I used to regularly mow my neighbours bit of the joint front lawn (not very big) until I realised he was repeatedly only mowing his half and leaving mine when he did it. We didn't fall out but it did confirm that he was a first class knob.

Reginald74

eddddy said:

As others say, you can trim the branches that protrude over your boundary - a bit like this:




But if it's a Leylandii, you'll probably be left with your side of the tree looking a bit like this (this is the same tree as above, from a different angle)   :

That really made me laugh. 

ambjay

In reply to those asking how high I'm attaching a pic taken from the top of an old victorian house. The flats that are dwarfed are 3 stories. After telling me that they were going to cut the trees they cut the branches their side to allow light but left my side.