The "certified letter to the neighbor" concept.

SeanKroll

Treehouser
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Olympia, WA
We have heard this idea again and again.

Anybody have any real backing, verbiage and/or experience with this playing out as the neighbor/ neighbor's HO insurance having responsibility when a tree falls on a customer's house?

After a micro burst, there are two adjacent properties with tipped trees immediately adjacent to where 2 trees were root pulled, ending up on houses, leaning toward two neighbors' homes, left standing for weeks now, with more wind and rain still common. The one neighbor also has a 44" x 130' doug-fir where he's wondering "will it come back?".

I told him that he will lose his house/ property if that tree fails and kills someone or destroys a house. My 5 year old could look at the tree and know its dying. His HO Insurance will RUN AWAY from responsibility as he is being very negligent.

I recently had Farmers' Insurance call me about the root conditions (did it have root disease) on a $150K, no injury claim, 40" doug-fir on same property sliced throught the house, leaving a 6' deep root hole, after dirt had settled. 10' root wad, 18' wide. They were trying to get out of it.
I left a voice mail indicating the big three root diseases for the species, no indication of said diseases, indicated a healthy root system that I made a point of showing to the Farmers' Insurance adjuster.
Never got another inquiry.
My invoice PIF, and I saw a plumbing truck and flooring truck onsite working yesterday. Sounds like they stood behind their customer 100% (son is a good negotiator, doesn't hurt, and he plugged me to get extra for the stump when it didn't flop back down into the hole for easier grinding. Got an extra $1K on the overall invoice (didn't hurt that I was way considerably less than the next bid, and the company had already authorized to get work done with 1 bid).
 
What's the question exactly?

Typically it's not the arborists job to look at or barely even consider the insurance policy. You tell them the tree looks sketchy, advise them to look st their policy.


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What can a person do when neighbors leave root pulled/ tipped tree leaning toward their house?

4 yards, common corner. Bev, elderly widow Lenore (my customer), Tyson, and Eric are the property owners.

2 Doug firs fell on neighbor Bev and neighbor Lenore from neighbor Tyson's yard. The 2 Doug firs uprooting/ falling may or may not have been the cause of the adjacent Lombardi poplar (Tyson's) and Doug fir ( Eric's) to be root-like. Cause is irrelevant.



Lenore and been have had trees on their houses, insurance claims, and have rooted-pulled trees in neighbors yards aimed at their homes. Eric has shitty, giant all but dead 130'+ fir. It didn't have enough foliage to catch wind from the microburst.

Lenore and Been want danger trees down. Short of that, they don't want to have another insurance claim due to negligent neighbors doing nothing for weeks (root-pulled) to years (dying fir).

What should they do?
 
I shouldn't stick my nose in where it doesn't belong but that's never stopped me before. :D If I was the land owner I'd try to get the adjusters from all insurance companies involved on site and let them duke it out, they hate loosing money and know how to deal with one another.
 
If people won't be responsible then she needs to hire an attorney. That person will ideally hire a qualified tree risk assessor and if the findings are hazardous start sending letters. This creates a trail that can't be denied so that if the tree fails and causes damage a negligence suit can be filed. Other than that I think only a judge can order the tree removed
 
It's sad to think people aren't smart enough to do the right thing without piss'n money away on lawyers.
 
I shouldn't stick my nose in where it doesn't belong but that's never stopped me before. :D If I was the land owner I'd try to get the adjusters from all insurance companies involved on site and let them duke it out, they hate loosing money and know how to deal with one another.

... Exactly!
 
Most reputable companies standing behind a good policy would want to AVOID a claim. This approach has gotten me work over the years , Allstate comes to mind....
 
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