Giving notice to your neighbor that their trees are rotten

If your neighbor's tree is rotten, and you give your neighbor proper notice, your neighbor will be responsible for any damage the rotten tree does to your property.

Mike: Not only being a good homeowner and having my own trees trimmed to protect my neighbor's house and my house at the same time when the arborist was looking at my trees he noticed that the neighbors trees were sick and dying. We simply just had a lawyer right up letter spend a 100 dollars on that to send to the homeowners who's the rental property saying that the trees are rotten and they need to be cut down. We sent that off and sure enough about six weeks ago the people had the trees taken down and then problem solved.

Attorney Tom Olsen: Mike you are spot on about this. Here's what the law of trees is on that issue. If your tree comes down if it's healthy and it comes down by act of god you are not responsible for the damage it does to your neighbor's property. However if you as a homeowner property owner are put on notice that your tree is diseased or defective or dying by your neighbor, gives you notice by certified mail as you did. If your tree then comes down it does damage your neighbor's property then you are legally responsible for that damage. That's exactly what you guys did Mike. You guys did exactly right. I'm so glad it was successful for you.

Mike: It was a couple 100 dollars and it would probably say those people were probably sitting at the dinner last week saying, "Honey I'm so glad we got those trees cut down."

Attorney Tom Olsen: Mike I'm so happy that worked out for you. I'm also happy that your neighbor could afford to take that tree down because sometimes you look at these disease and damaged properties and they're sitting on a piece of property that clearly somebody is not maintaining that property. Smebody doesn't care or somebody can't afford it and you may put your neighbor on notice but they don't have 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 dollars to pay somebody bring the tree down and they're not going to do it, anyway.

Mike: Thank you sir.

Attorney Tom Olsen: All right Mike. Good for you and good for your lawyer for giving that good advice getting that done for you.