Submitted by bcardarella t3_zuaxe1 in boston
Branch came down, did enough damage that it is looking like over $10,000 at least to repair/replace everything.
Branch came from tree on neighbor's property. I told him two years ago about this issue when we removed trees on our property and saw many were rotten on the inside.
Considering this is MA, I'm guessing I'm fucked and there is no way to hold my neighbor responsible.
Edit: I have no idea if his tree had rot.
Exactly this. Take pictures and document everything and give it to the person assigned to handle your claim. Your neighbors insurance will most likely have to cover it.
That's not true. Wherever it lands is so needs to cover it. Trees have fallen and damaged more than one property, and insurance of each one is responsible for their own part.
Unless the tree was rotten and confirmed that it should have been taken down for danger.
What isnt true? OP implied they contacted the owner of said tree about the tree being rotted. I told them to document everything and contact their own insurance company regarding the damages. Their insurance company will investigate and go after the neighbor's insurance company if they think they're liable.
That they'll most likely have to cover it.
If the tree was rotted and they were notified then yes, they will.
Just checking in to let everyone know this guy OP has a fuckin pool house and is on Reddit asking how to sue people lmfao
OPs insurance will cover the damage and then if they can they'll go and sue the neighbor, whose own insurance company will probably come to a settlement.
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This is the way. Take pictures and provide your written warning as well! Your insurance will go after their insurance.(I used to work for insurance companies)
Have you heard of deesha? Similar to what your talking about.
For the future, if the tree branch is over your property you are within your rights to trim it back yourself.
The issue here is that the trunk where the heaviest part wasn't hanging over just some of the branches of that limb. When it broke off it must have tumbled over or got hung up and fell over into my yard. So what I would have had access to to trim likely would not have changed this outcome.
I’m nosy and love mess, what was the 10k damage?
Ripped pool cover, took out corner of roof of a small pool house, destroyed a few appliances. The pool cover is more concerning as I think they're built to order so getting a replacement is tricky and the rip exposing the pool in Winter is a huge liability.
Look at this guy with his pool and pool house while we out here living in cardboard boxes
OP has a pool house and is smart enough to consult the top minds of reddit for legal advice.
Does your box not come with a pool of liquid in the corner?
Idk I had to come and make my own
lmaoo
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How do you know he didn’t work his ass off to attain those nice things? They don’t just fall out of the sky unless you inherit money.
i don’t think the commenter really cares where the money is from edit: i don’t care either dude can go kick rocks as far as i’m concerned but just saying
What is the size of your pool cover?
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That may be true...
But that doesn't mean that a tree company will be willing to actually do that trimming without permission.
My neighbor removed a bunch of trees from their property, and while they were at it, they wanted to remove some branches that overhung their property. The tree was technically on my property.
I didn't care, but the tree removal company needed my permission. They gave me a letter to sign.
I suspect this might be pretty common. Tree removal company doesn't want to be in the middle of a neighbor fight. So even if it's legal to do it, they don't want to be liable
Can you trim it all the way to the tree or only to your property line?
You can trim to the property line.
You actually own your dirt straight up to infinity
Not sure that’s true. Planes can occupy your air space.
Yeah it’s only like 75 feet above any building a on the property
That’s more like an easement, they’re just passing through
No, it's one of the most famous cases in modern property law from the early days of commercial aviation. The sky above your property is not your property, at least in the US.
Edit: see Supreme Court case US v. Causby, 1946
Mine is 🤷🏼♂️
Not if you're in the US. See US v. Causby, 1946 Supreme Court case. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Causby
Bravo! Mine too. I do give birds a free pass. It’s more theirs than mine, but their cool with it.
Depending on where the moon is in its rotation you own a piece of that too.
Think of your moon-property as like a timeshare: when it’s over your house, you own it
Ponte vs Disilva seems a relevant one to what you just sent
Jones v. Great Barrington has prior notice of poor condition. Ponte specifically says "healthy trees" which OP says isn't the case...
Tree law! r/legaladvice loves tree law.
r/treelaw is even better
r/treeadvice not as helpful. Turns out trees don't talk much.
Believe it or not r/trees has some of the finest minds on reddit.
cuz this made me lol
Pretty sure legaladvice has banned tree law posts due to too many of them likely being creative writing exercises/karma farming posts.
I like Ty Law better.
If you notified your neighbor via registered letter (or have some other means that documents their receipt of the 'notice' you sent like a text or email) that the tree was unhealthy, you may be able to have your insurance company subrogate (go after their insurance company). It will be especially helpful if you have photos of the tree before and after the damage was incurred. If the neighbor claims to have no idea the tree was failing, they will likely claim it was an 'act of God" and have no liability for damages to your property. Get as many close-up photos of the tree possible showing the rot and all the damage it caused.
Unless the OP is a licensed arborist it would not work. A random guy cannot justify tree health. Trees fall, that's what insurance for.
I had this happen to me. Very difficult to prove negligence. Even with the local arborist telling me he told my neighbor the tree should come down. I just had to swallow the deductible and haven’t talked to my neighbor since.
Same exact thing happened to me! Except the insurance agent basically told us to not even bother because it would make our premium go up so much to put a in a claim in our situation. So frustrating that nothing negative falls upon the negligent tree owners!!
Any limbs hanging over on to your property are your responsibility. You can trim them without permission from the neighbor as well.
Insurance should cover it regardless.
This happened to me some years ago though I was the neighbor. Same thing with a large branch over their house, and I was concerned about my liability. I kept wanting them to split the cost to remove it but with no luck. About a week after I scheduled a removal, there was a large storm that took it down for me right on their roof…..luckily no one was home at the time. Called my insurance to figure out what’s going to happened and all here’s what I found out.
Maybe you can make a case of the condition and health of the tree. However it’ll be up to the insurance company to determine if it’s worth going after their insurance company….more likely than not, your insurance would just pay it out and increase your premium. Sorry it’s never a winning situation when it involves insurance companies.
I am a lawyer who has dealt with large trees knocking over neighbor’a houses, taking out cars, and in one instance crushing a man as he was driving by in a bad storm of all things.
This is the correct answer. If the limb overhangs your property then you can cut it down no matter it’s condition. If the limb is diseased or dying, the person who owns the land where the base of the tree sits is aware of this (or has reason to be aware) and that limb falls because of the diseased condition - then the neighbor could be liable.
Either way. To anyone who has a limb overhanging your car or property - if you want it gone then cut it down. Best to talk to your neighbor about it first to explain this before doing it.
I can't remember all the details but… years ago my relatives living in a third-floor condo (in Brookline, MA) warned a neighbor that the large tree on her property was obviously dying, leaning unnaturally… but there were no branches actually hanging over onto my relatives' side. When they asked the neighbor to have the tree cut down before it fell down, she told them to mind their own business.
Then one day the whole tree fell over and completely destroyed my relatives' wooden porch. Luckily nobody was on it at the time, nobody hurt. But removing the tree and replacing the porch was very expensive.
I don't remember how the insurance worked out, but I do remember my relatives asking a lawyer if they had recourse against the neighbor, and they were told no, a tree coming down all by itself was considered "an act of God", not negligence. Which sounded crazy to me, especially considering that my relatives were atheists. What happened to separation of church and state?
So I would say to that - if from the outside this tree appeared diseased and dying, AND, that was what caused the tree to fall (I have seen healthy portions of a tree fall during a savage windstorm, and had nothing to do with what was going on in other portions of the tree…) then when you submit that claim to your insurance company, your insurance company may have surrogates (or tried to) against your neighbor’s insurance company.
I just had an arborist come out and remove three trees at the edge of my property that were in danger of crushing my neighbor's fence (one was dead and had fallen onto another tree supporting it, one was almost dead, and one was waaaay leaning). $3k is not cheap, but cheaper than a $10k fence.
you're a good neighbor
State farm was there?
They've seen a few things
First time it falls it’s on you in Mass. if it did enough damage, then it’s prob worth making a claim. Second time (say the rest of the tree) it’s on the tree owner. Been through this on both sides.
Iirc if the trees dead and known to be dead they have liability. If it’s alive it’s Mother Nature.
Either way call your insurance.
Usually, the law is that if a BRANCH is hanging over on your property from a tree that is on your neighbor's property, you have every right to cut the BRANCH. Unfortunately, you can not likely successfully sue your neighbor for the existence of the tree, even though the branch is connected. In most cases, in the eyes of the law, that BRANCH is your problem. Sorry.
Branches falling are your "problem" unless you pass the issue to the home insurance. Your neighbor has to do some real neglectful stuff for it to be their fault. Like they'd have to be cutting it down and go answer a phone inside.
My neighbor has giant pines on her side of my fence. Branches hang over my side. They've twice come down and broken my fence. I had a tree company come take a dead one down that was actually on her property and at risk of damaging mine and another neighbors and I paid for it. I asked if she wanted any others down when the tree guy was there and she said no.
Giant tree came down 2 years ago and is leaning against a tree in her yard. She tried to get me to pay for it. To be extra neighborly, I told her if she found someone, I would cover half the cost, but that I wasn't arranging work on her property.
Despite all this, she blames me for the leaning tree and stopped talking to me.
I don't know why I'm sharing this except to say that trees on property lines are a huge pain and you can't win no matter what you do.
Your neighbor is a huge pain
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This works the same everywhere - regardless of what state you're in. Falls on your property, you own it. If it causes damage your insurance company takes care of it and subrogates with other parties if needed. Done.
You told him 2 years ago doesn’t make a difference. Let Insurnace deal with it. You are really over thinking / over complicating it .
Others have said let insurance deal with this its what you pay for. Generally speaking unless its super obvious neglect you have an act of god situation.
You’re allowed to trim anything back to your property line, otherwise the tree is theirs. They have no obligation to cut or trim anything for you other than the tree rotting or being dead and that must be determined by an arborist that they are under no obligation to pay for or schedule. It’s on you entirely. The exception to this is the power utility companys. They have been given the right to trim or cut down anything that they deem as a threat or unsafe to their property/investment aka the power lines. However, they will always trim back the absolute bare minimum or be incredibly conservative so as to not incur much cost or be sued.
Basically, MA laws are fucking stupid. We had an issue years ago where we had to fight against a neighbor across the street who had 10-15 trees that simply originated on the edge of their property but grew towards us. They wouldn’t cut their trees, spent years only cutting the beaches on their side to add more weight to our side, and they won’t let us cut them either even if we wanted to pay. Have lawyers in the fam and we tried everything but ended up having to settle to cut it back to the property line and eventually got them to agree that we’d take it a few feetback beyond that so it didn’t grow back quickly. But we ensured we did it in the worse way possible so their trees look like shit now since we took away most of the greenery. They’re left with tall stumps now since they wanted to be assholes.
If you have pictures of the rot then you may have a case if it’s very clear from the pics but generally you should have called an arborist and paid the $100-150 to have them give you an official assessment and then taken that to them to get them to cut them down. You’d have easily been able to get the courts to force them to remove those trees at their own cost or protect yourself if they refused since they’d be liable.
The fence is covered property on a homeowners policy so it’s most likely covered.
Yea used to work for a board of health in MA. It isn’t their responsibility and it’s so stupid
Shiel v. Rowell, 480 Mass. 106 (2018) Upholds the "Massachusetts rule" that "an individual whose property is damaged by a neighbor's healthy tree has no cause of action against a landowner of the property upon which the tree lies." Property owners who are disturbed by their neighbor's trees are "not without recourse," though. They remain free to remove any part of the tree that crosses the property line.
Ponte v. DaSilva, 388 Mass. 1008 (1983). "The failure of a landowner to prevent the blowing or dropping of leaves, branches, and sap from a healthy tree onto a neighbor's property is not unreasonable and cannot be the basis of a finding of negligence or private nuisance."
Kurtigan v. City of Worcester, 348 Mass. 284 (1965) (Superseded by Statute as Stated in Hanna v. Town of Framingham, Mass. App. Ct., February 11, 2004) City was held liable for damages caused by limbs of dead tree falling from property which city acquired for nonpayment of taxes. "Public policy in a civilized community requires that there be someone to be held responsible for a private nuisance on each piece of real estate, and, particularly in an urban area, that there be no oases of nonliability where a private nuisance may be maintained with impunity."
The person where the branches land is responsible AS LONG AS there was nothing wrong with the trees.
If you told your neighbor the trees were unhealthy or dead, and she did not do anything about the trees, then she is responsible.
If she had a tree expert come out and bless (assess) her trees as health, then you are responsible.
This happened to me earlier this year.
Good luck, I mean, you're out of luck. Tree law sucks.
Go through insurance like a normal person
If you live in Hingham, good luck, lol. By the way you live 2 minutes from my golf club. Cheers!
Black Rock or Boston?
Boston
Nice! I've heard it's beautiful
It’s a wonderful place.
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Hopefully you’re insurance covers more than just a ficus tree 🤣
> Considering this is MA, I'm guessing I'm fucked and there is no way to hold my neighbor responsible.
Can you share this magical state where you think laws are better?
Notify your neighbor and request their insurance info. Put your homeowner’s on notice as well.
The neighbors insurance isn’t responsible unless you have proof that it was an issue.
OP states he warned the neighbor. Proof isn’t a factor here at this point. Both homeowner policies should be notified and claims filed. A claim isn’t sustainable if the tree was healthy.
That's your fault. Stop trying to blame your neighbor just because it came from their tree.
Did you send your neighbor a letter? If you did they are negligent. If not you are and will use your insurance
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Intimidation and violence... ahhh the good old days.
Yeah, all the people complaining about Southie gentrifying clearly never spent time there before…. My family goes back multiple generations in southie. I have absolutely no issues with it no longer being a festering pit of tribal violence, vice and despair.
hitbyacar1 t1_j1i0iea wrote
Just tell your homeowners insurance and they’ll deal with it.