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

[josephineave.livejournal.com]

As someone who joined with a neighbor to pay a bunch of money to have a huge tree removed from a similar location, I've done a wee bit of research, but most of it's stuff I grabbed off the internets.

Property owners are pretty much responsible for the limbs growing over their own properties. The original owner doesn't have any responsibility for those, unless the whole tree falls as a result of negligence. Just as the "air rights" owner has a right to trim any branches over the property, there would also be a corresponding responsibility to keep the limbs from doing damage. You can't hold your neighbor responsible for something you could very well fix yourself, especially since your neighbor would need your permission to proceed.

As to the bill, you probably don't have a contract. The only offer made was to cut down your branches. No mention was made of consideration. It's like me shoveling your driveway without your knowledge and then asking for $100. He qualifies as a bad businessman, if nothing else. But the work is related to his profession, so one might be able to make the argument that you were engaging him the same way you would engage a plumber, often not talking cost until after.

Legal obligation aside, you may want to pay him something, letting him know he did not discuss the circumstances or rates or anything other than cutting down the branches. You gave him permission to proceed and you were aware that the services offered were related to his profession. It's something that you would probably have to do in the future.

Or just call Judge Judy, since this is a good case for her (assuming you have some dimwitted relatives you can bring along to testify).