Can you trim your neighbor’s tree? NC law about trees, damage & property

Whether it’s an afternoon thunderstorm in the summer, an ice storm in the winter or just an unusually windy day, when the weather gets wild, there’s a chance trees — or their branches — can fall, possibly bringing damage to your home or other property.

If you have precarious trees or branches on your own property, you may consider trimming them before stormy weather brings them down and causes damage.

But what if the trees or branches are on a neighboring property?

What legal rights do you have in North Carolina to manage those trees before they fall?

What are your rights if it falls and causes damage?

How is fault assigned?

To understand the answers to those questions and more, The News & Observer spoke with Andrew Branan, a lawyer and extension assistant professor at N.C. State University.

Here’s what we learned.

Step 1: Talk with your neighbor about problem limbs or trees

Before we get too far into the legal weeds, let’s state what might be obvious: If a neighbor’s tree or limbs from a tree are bothering you for any reason, including that they’re encroaching on your property, the best first step is to talk with your neighbor about the problem.

You may be able to come to a resolution about the issue, such as the neighbor handling the issue or you both agreeing to split the cost of tree removal or limb trimming.

If that doesn’t work, you may find the information listed here useful to determine your next steps, whether you’re just dealing with unruly limbs or damage from a neighbor’s precarious tree.

You should also note that, in addition to the legal reasoning we’ve listed here, there may also be local ordinances or HOA rules that govern these issues. It’s a good idea to check local rules, as well as talk with your neighbor, before you proceed with any limb cutting.

Can I legally cut limbs from a neighbor’s tree in NC?

Let’s start with a scenario you might encounter before a tree actually falls and damages your home or other property: A tree, rooted and planted in your neighbor’s yard, has branches that are hanging over the property line, encroaching on your property.

You may notice that the limbs are precariously hanging onto the tree or over some part of your property, or you may just not like the way the tree’s branches look as they hang over your property. Perhaps you want to prevent the limbs from falling onto your property.

What are your rights, if any, when it comes to cutting those limbs?

There’s no cut and dried answer, but to help us understand the question, Branan provided a Latin phrase used in common law: “Cuius est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos,” meaning “whoever’s is the soil, it is theirs all the way to Heaven and all the way to Hell.”

In simpler terms: “Generally, the property line extends all the way down to the center of the earth, and all the way up to the sky to space,” Branan said.

Thinking about the issue that way, it would seem that a tree, even if its limbs cross over property lines, belongs fully — from its roots in the ground to its branches in the sky — to the person who owns the land where the tree is growing, and you, as the neighbor who does not own the land nor the tree, may not have a legal right to alter the tree in any way.

However, Branan said, trees can also be thought of in another way: as fructus naturales, or crops or plants that grow naturally and without assistance from humans. That’s because most trees have generally been around for years and years, often before property lines were even drawn.

“They’re just growing on the property, or they may have been planted at some point, but they’re just growing and they’re gonna grow where they grow,” Branan said. “And so it’s not as if the neighboring landowner is intentionally trespassing or even negligent.”

Thinking about trees in that sense, you may have more rights to cut limbs that are encroaching on your property from a neighbor’s tree — but you don’t do so without assuming legal risk or liability for killing or damaging the tree in the process, Branan said.

So, as we’ve noted above, before you grab your chainsaw and cut any limbs off your neighbor’s trees, try talking with the neighbor first. You may come to a solution that keeps you from assuming those legal risks by cutting the limbs yourself.

A neighbor’s tree fell and damaged my property. Whose fault is it?

Now, let’s think about perhaps a bigger issue with bigger consequences: A tree, or a tree’s limbs, from a neighbor’s property falls or otherwise damages your home or other property.

Who’s liable for the damage? Will your homeowner’s insurance cover the damage?

Insurance to the rescue. In most cases, Branan said, homeowner’s insurance (or insurance for whatever other property was damaged, such as a boat) will cover the damage, no matter whose tree it technically was that fell — as long as you actually have insurance for the property and haven’t let it lapse.

▪ You’ll need to read your insurance contract to verify that such events are covered, but it’s a good bet that they’re covered as an act of God.

Liability for the tree falling may or may not be assigned, and your insurance may or may not seek money from the tree owner, depending on “the extent of the damage suffered by the injured party,” and whether an event damaging the tree was foreseeable, Branan said.

What about negligence? For a landowner to be found negligent or liable in the event of their tree falling across property lines, they are “under a duty to eliminate the reasonably foreseeable danger a tree may pose to adjoining property,” Branan previously wrote on an N.C. State Extension website.

There are several factors that may contribute to the tree owner being found negligent for the tree falling, Branan said.

▪ For example, if the tree that fell had been damaged for some time, and a weather event that damaged the tree or caused it to fall had been well documented in advance, a “trier-of-fact” — such as a judge or jury — “could find that the owner acted unreasonably in waiting for the tree to cause damage, and could therefore assign the owner liability for the damage and removal,” Branan previously wrote.

In any case, if you notice a neighbor’s tree seems precarious or you think it could cause damage, it’s a good idea to document those things, in case the information is needed later.

And remember, it’s always a good idea to talk with your neighbor about problem limbs or trees before damage occurs, if possible.

More information

More information about these topics can be found in an article Branan previously wrote for N.C. State Extension at content.ces.ncsu.edu/tree-fall-liability-who-is-responsible-for-property-damage.