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

[copperpoint.livejournal.com]

I would assume that regardless of who is actually legally responsible for the tree (though I am pretty sure that brances on your property are your responsibility, even if the tree is rooted somewhere else) there was never any agreement about payment. You didn't even have an oral agreement, let alone actual contract.
The cynic in me says get in touch with the landlord (and other tennants) and see if the guy is trying to get paid there, too.