Questions about neighbor's tree surgeon

[fappyheet.livejournal.com]

I have a question that relates to neighbors and contract work. A fence separates our back yard from the (non-resident landlord) neighbor's yard. There's a tall tree on his side with foliage sufficient to shade both yards. Up until this story, the limbs have been long enough to reach our roof. One of our neighbor's tenants (who we chat with occasionally) does landscaping work. In the spring, this tenant pointed out how the branches from the neighbor's tree could rub against our roof and damage it. The gist of the conversation was "we wouldn't a tree of ours to damage your roof, so it should be trimmed back." I thought that made sense and said to go ahead and trim. During the summer, he came by a few times and used the landlord's ladder to trim branches above our roof and that of an adjacent neighbor. I assisted once or twice with cleanup and holding the ladder.

Last week, I heard that he was done and thought, "Great! No more evil tree branches." Last weekend, the tenant put a hand-written bill for "tree surgery" in our mailbox. It surprised us, given that we'd never contracted with him, just agreed to the request for access to trimming the branches. We haven't responded yet, since I'd rather know where we stand legally. Plus, we got along well enough as neighbors and I don't want to sour that unnecessarily.

There are two easy questions:
1) If a tree trunk is on your property, are you responsible for the foliage? I know there are "air rights" for buildings, but this strikes me as different, since the branches really could damage our roof.
2) Am I free to reject the bill, given there was no advance agreement for services? I've confirmed no one else in the building agreed to payment or any compensation. If anything, we allowed it BECAUSE it wouldn't cost us anything, otherwise we would've vetted him professionally first.

Muchos gracias!

(Checked through the "gardening" and "legal" DS archives with no luck, other than an entertaining conversation about Tom Champion's search for a tree surgeon.)

Comments

[purpless77.livejournal.com]

I'm not an expert, but it appears that you don't have to pay anything.
I do know that it is the responsibility of the person who has the bark on their property to remove branches interfering with the neighboring homes. However, in your case it was you who "hired" this guy to do the job and not the "owners" of the tree. That in itself could put you in a big wrong since it isn't your tree. You or your landowner is supposed to get in contact with the tee "owner" about doing something about the tree.
If he is to bill someone it's the person who "hired" him, which is you. But if there was no contract he has no proof he was even the one who did the work. So it's pretty much his word against yours. I can understand him wanting some compensation for his work but he should have discussed that with your prior to him doing the work. But it was never brought up. If you feel you'd like to compensate him for his work, that is really up to you. If he pushes the matter it might make for an unfriendly situation but he was at fault for not bringing up the topic of compensation and a contract.

Like I said I'm not an expert, just someone who knws landowners who have had tree/neighbor situations just like this.

[derekp.livejournal.com]

I am not a lawyer and I can't comment on weather the original poster has to pay the bill or not.

However, I believe you are within your rights in Massachusetts to trim anything that is on your property - weather it originates from there or not. We were told we could basically chop our neighbors tree off at the property line if we wanted to. The neighborly thing to do is ask, but I don't think the OP is in any danger from having trimmed branches of a neighbors tree that were touching his roof.

[purpless77.livejournal.com]

I said,
"That in itself COULD put you in the wrong". Since I was unsure on that I didn't say "does".

I know some homeowners who have gone through this so I was aware of most of the standards.