gianmarco
Footballguy
Ugh...
We just recently moved into a new home a little over a month ago. Part of the draw of the house was the landscaping and multiple trees on the property. It's a 1 acre lot.
The house next door was recently bought by someone (a VP of a construction company) and he tore down the previous home and is building a new home. We weren't even aware of this until we returned from vacation a little over a week ago. Apparently while we were gone, he knocked on our door a few times to talk and introduce himself but we never got to meet. End of last week, I found a business card on our door introducing himself and to call so we can talk and meet. We spoke on Thursday evening and he explained he was planning on taking some trees down with one of them being on the property line and wanted to discuss. I said sure and he said he'd be by sometime in the beginning of next week (this week) so we can talk.
Yesterday afternoon, my wife calls me from the other room that trees are coming down next door. I go outside and one of the large 40-50 ft hickory trees between our properties is about to come down. Our survey stakes are still up and I'm looking and it looks like it's at least on the property line if not our tree outright. At this point, the tree comes down but I told the 2 workers there that they needed to stop taking anything else down even remotely near that area. It's 5pm and they were pretty much done anyway. I call the new owner and finally hear from him last evening and decide to meet this morning.
He comes this morning at 8am and he's just shaking his head. That tree was the one he wanted to discuss with me as he knew it was likely on the property line which makes it both of ours. The tree cutters yesterday were supposed to be working on the other side of the lot. He admits that this was a mistake as we're both looking at this large stump.
He plans on getting a survey out here to determine where this tree stump lie. However, I'm pretty sure (and I think he is too), that it's at least partially over the line if not completely making it our tree.
I don't know even know what's next. I did some brief reading and it seems in Missouri that if a neighbor cuts down a tree of yours, they can be liable for 3x the amount. But how do you assign a value to a 40-50 ft mature hickory tree that's probably at least 50 years old? How do I even begin to address this issue if it's determined it was our tree.
I'd rather not even begin to get a lawyer involved and hope that we'll be able to settle this between us, but given the likely amount we are talking about, I don't know if that's going to happen. My wife is pissed. I am too. The new owner was pretty apologetic and it seems it was a mistake more than anything else, but wtf.....
Open to any ideas, thoughts, shtick......
We just recently moved into a new home a little over a month ago. Part of the draw of the house was the landscaping and multiple trees on the property. It's a 1 acre lot.
The house next door was recently bought by someone (a VP of a construction company) and he tore down the previous home and is building a new home. We weren't even aware of this until we returned from vacation a little over a week ago. Apparently while we were gone, he knocked on our door a few times to talk and introduce himself but we never got to meet. End of last week, I found a business card on our door introducing himself and to call so we can talk and meet. We spoke on Thursday evening and he explained he was planning on taking some trees down with one of them being on the property line and wanted to discuss. I said sure and he said he'd be by sometime in the beginning of next week (this week) so we can talk.
Yesterday afternoon, my wife calls me from the other room that trees are coming down next door. I go outside and one of the large 40-50 ft hickory trees between our properties is about to come down. Our survey stakes are still up and I'm looking and it looks like it's at least on the property line if not our tree outright. At this point, the tree comes down but I told the 2 workers there that they needed to stop taking anything else down even remotely near that area. It's 5pm and they were pretty much done anyway. I call the new owner and finally hear from him last evening and decide to meet this morning.
He comes this morning at 8am and he's just shaking his head. That tree was the one he wanted to discuss with me as he knew it was likely on the property line which makes it both of ours. The tree cutters yesterday were supposed to be working on the other side of the lot. He admits that this was a mistake as we're both looking at this large stump.
He plans on getting a survey out here to determine where this tree stump lie. However, I'm pretty sure (and I think he is too), that it's at least partially over the line if not completely making it our tree.
I don't know even know what's next. I did some brief reading and it seems in Missouri that if a neighbor cuts down a tree of yours, they can be liable for 3x the amount. But how do you assign a value to a 40-50 ft mature hickory tree that's probably at least 50 years old? How do I even begin to address this issue if it's determined it was our tree.
I'd rather not even begin to get a lawyer involved and hope that we'll be able to settle this between us, but given the likely amount we are talking about, I don't know if that's going to happen. My wife is pissed. I am too. The new owner was pretty apologetic and it seems it was a mistake more than anything else, but wtf.....
Open to any ideas, thoughts, shtick......