Neighbors tree over daycare playground question

flashover604

TreeHouser
Joined
Sep 3, 2014
Messages
443
Location
Lancaster Ohio
Hi all. My boss at my day job wanted me to come over and look at a couple cottonwood branches and some dead ash trees next to his wife's daycare business. The trees are growing on his neighbors (Apartment Complex) side of a chain link fence. The ashes are 20-25' tall with very little spread away from the trunk and 8"-12" diameter. They've been dead for years. The cottonwoods are 60'-70' tall and have several limbs hanging over the playground of the daycare. I could take the ash trees down easy enough, but the cottonwood limbs are out of my comfort zone. He's going to try to get a quote from some of the local tree places. My question is for my own knowledge.

How do you go about a situation like this? He wants the cottonwoods basically cleared in a line directly up from the fence. Anything over his property he wants removed. I have no clue as to the legality of cutting someone else's tree over your customers property.

Thanks in advance!
 
What Dave said, but around here if the limbs are over your property you can cut them. I've done it many times. It's courteous to ask premission but not necessary.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #6
You can cut them and not impact the outcome of the tree....stability, health or aesthetic.

The "aesthetic" part will be pretty rough. If he gets what he wants it'll look like a tree shaved in half. I can't imagine it'll be good for the health, but I'm not an arborist. The tree will certainly become much heavier on one side, though I've seen right of way trees done like this. It'll be interesting to see what they tell him.
 
The best way to deal with situations where trees have become too big to be pruned and still keep a desirable character, is to remove them and replant,. From a time when people were more appreciative of good gardens through generations and budgeted so. Sometimes there's no second best.
 
I would have the insurance company of the daycare contact the insurance company of the tree owner and see where it goes from there. Anybody that has a vested interest in the liability aspect might make the trees go bye bye.
 
Here in Wisco anything over the property line is fair game. How about a limb tip redux lessening the chance of failure over the playground? It will help keep some shade and not hack up the tree.
 
This is a hard problem to deal with. You have to respect the owner of the trees and not hack the trees up, then you have to keep the kids safe from any hazards. It could be a liability if nothing is done, but also a liability if you end up killing the trees. I think the higher priority is to keep the kids safe, I would contact the property owner and tell them why. Usually if you mention its to keep kids safe people are pretty easy going.
 
It's a PITA. In Ohio you have the right to cut at the property line and remove the roots at the line if desired. I personally have issues with this but if the nieghbor is being negligent about his trees I can understand. I prefer to make sure both parties are in agreement on that kind of work. One thing to remember is that even though they may have the right to do it, a climber usually has to access the tree from the owners side. Without permission is technically trespassing
 
Others have covered the basics that I would start with, then if I wanted to see the complex owner 'grow some motivation' I would put the hazards of the situation, dead trees left for X amount of time and overhanging limbs in a letter or email. In CA if a kid died today from this it would be an act of God. If a kid died from the same thing tomorrow after receiving the letter it would be gross negligence in a court of law. All lawyers, insurance companies and monied people seem to get very clear on what aught to be done once there is documentation.
 
Here, we can't touch neybour trees. Shrubs and roots yes, even if that could kill the tree (so stupid part of the law), but nothing on the upper part.
3 weeks ago though, I did just that, shaving at the trunk 6 mapples and ashs over the fence. The customer said that he got the get go from the home owner, but I wasn't comfortable at all with that because there was nobody here to comfirm his saying.
 
I usually go talk with the owner.
When they refuse to let anybody touch their trees, I ask them to put it in writing, so we''l know where to go when the first kid gets killed.

That usually resolves the problem.

Had a bunch of rotten poplars ( Someone ran a ditch for cables through their root zone) around a school 3 years ago.
The city had for some obscure reason included those in a general protection rule for trees.

Protected poplars, give me a break. Might as well protect weeds.


I used the above trick and had a permission to wipe the weeds out in less than a week.

Apparently, no-one at city hall wanted to sign that piece of paper.
 
Up here you can cut back off your property line so long as it doesn't kill the tree.
+1 on talking to neighbours to get an OK.

The threat of insurance "action" is a good one around here, but really is a toothless tiger. Your property, your insurance claim regardless of what happened. If something is a clear and obvious fault, then you might not pay or you will get back your deductible.
 
The customer said that he got the get go from the home owner, but I wasn't comfortable at all with that because there was nobody here to comfirm his saying.

No way would I proceed. That homeowner could be FOS.
 
I always tell the client that we will need to access the adjoining property so therefore we need permission- not so much to cut the tree but to access the tree. How will you set up a porta wrap or basal tie without trespassing? Sure there's always another way to git er done but its usually harder than having unrestricted access...


* just realised Rich covered this already.
 
Main idea is to gain permission from all parties so my Tree Company will not named in any encroachment lawsuit , thank you. ( What I tell my customers). View work quite often involves the neighbors.
 
We always get written permission to cross property lines, even for cleanup. Especially with boundary trees (jointly owned) but usually with border (near the line) trees. We have a letter template and I have a line item that has a prefilled description for quotes which helps explain to the client, and acts as a reminder to myself and our secretary to send the LOPT (letter of permission to trespass).

As I understand it in Washington, you can prune a tree over your property as long as you don't "damage" it. Now technically pruning is wounding, but I think that as long as your following industry best practices you would be fine.
 
Mind you, our contract does state that the client is responsible for property lines and getting permission, but I had a client get verbal permission from the owner who died. The person who inherited the land sued my client for the work we did. We didn't catch any trouble, but I got a little more strict about requiring written permission for everyones protection.
 
Stick to your ansi and bmp for pruning. Poorly placed cuts will lead to decay and actually increase the likelyhood of branch failures in the direction of the daycare. Proper removal and reduction cuts.
 
Back
Top