Advice re insuring against tree damage

DullGreyGuy

helenajosephine said:

Your Buildings Insurance will have a third party liability cover included as the land owner; were such a claim be made against you then you could raise the lack of clarity of your boundary and they'd consider if they can challenge the fact that the tree is yours. 

Thanks for this info. The insurance question was my reason for posting. I need to speak with my home insurance company because I’ve never answered ‘yes’ to the question re ‘trees near my property’, mainly because this one isn’t within the stipulated distance of my house to warrant a problem and, until now I have assumed that the council accepted responsibility seeing as they made it safe at my instigation 12 years ago. 

You dont need to speak to them, CIDRA is a law governing consumer insurance and disclosures required. For home insurance an insurer must ask relevant questions and cannot expect the consumer to offer up any additional information which hasn't been explicitly asked. They also cannot use vague questions like "is there anything else you should tell us". 

On the basis they asked about tall trees within Xm and this tree is beyond Xm then they'd have no grounds for declining the claim for you having not disclosed the tree. Tall trees are generally being asked about due to subsidence rather than the risk of them falling. 

user1977

helenajosephine said:

user1977 

You're not liable if you're not the owner. So that's the first thing to check. Who owns the land beyond your boundary (wherever it is)? Have you checked whether there is a registered title?

I have tried all the publicly available searches. The land registry (2 sets of docs @£20), a detailed OS map and had help from a surveyor friend. From the top of the bank down to the lane behind us has never been indicated as part of my boundary, however on one of the land registry plans it is shaded blue, but I am unable to determine what that means, and the surveyor doesn’t know. 

£20? Are you sure you're using the actual registers and not one of the looky-likey sites which overcharges for £3 info?

You'd be better to ask a solicitor than a surveyor to interpret title deeds. There's definitely nothing in the text of the title which explains what the colouring indicates? You didn't get any advice about the title when you bought?

sheramber

Have you asked your neighbours if they know who owns the ban?

helenajosephine

@DullGreyGuy, thanks again for your advice, that certainly makes me feel less concerned re any potential claim for 3rd party damage. 

@user1977, I thought I had accessed the official land registry site, and others had advised that general public access to the docs was costly, so I didn’t think anything of it. My surveyor friend subsequently mentioned that he could have accessed them foc! 🫣. There was definitely no key to the shaded area on the docs I bought. I went back to the land reg docs obtained by our solicitor when I bought the house, and the boundary definitely ends at the top of the bank, and there is no blue shading. 

@sheramber, i havent asked the neighbours, but most have been in the village for less time than I have. I may approach the parish council because some of the area dates back to when one of the Cambridge colleges owned all the land, but I believe they palmed the tricky, non valuable stuff off on the council.