Neighbor Had A Landscaper Plant Twelve Trees, But Most Of Them Are Actually On Another Homeowner’s Property. So They Asked Him To Move Them, But Now He’s Upset.

Jayne Elliott

19 minutes ago

Source: Reddit/AITA/Shutterstock

It’s really important to know where the property line is before planting or building anything that could potentially be near someone else’s land.

All too often neighbors accidentally plant or build something on their neighbor’s property without knowing it, and that causes a lot of drama.

This is one of those stories.

This time there are twelve trees involved, as well as two unhappy neighbors.

Let’s see how the story plays out..

AITA for asking my neighbor to move newly planted fir trees off my property?

A few months ago my neighbor approached us and said he wanted to plant a row of fir trees between our yards.

We expressed some concern, specifically in the area closer to our house where it’s dark.

We have trouble growing grass, and we wanted to plant something smaller in our bed there.

These trees will grow quite large and wide, and they are not what we want for our yard.

But our neighbor said they would be planted on his property, and we said whatever- it’s his property, he wasn’t asking for money, so fine.

They were concerned about where the landscapers planted the trees.

We were working from home when the landscapers were planting the trees.

We briefly we went out to look at the progress, and noticed that the holes were large, but it was hard to tell where the trees would end up and we did not protest.

However, once they were fully planted, we noticed that several of the trees appeared to encroach on our property, specifically several in the areas we had concerns about.

The neighbor was willing to move the trees.

We notified our neighbor about our concerns right away.

He was open to moving some of the trees and wanted to know which ones, and to where.

Since we didn’t know exactly where the property line was, we said we wanted to get a survey to be better informed.

He asked that we do this as soon as possible because it was late autumn, and he wanted to be able to move the trees before it got too cold.

The survey results were NOT good news for the neighbor!

We called a surveyor immediately, but due to their schedule, it was a month before we had the final survey report, which cost us over $3000.

When we got it, the survey showed that out of 12 new trees, 6 were on our property (the tree trunks are solidly on our land), and 4 are right on the line, and 1 is very close with branches substantially growing onto our property.

Only 1 is fully on his land.

The neighbor is NOT happy.

We sent him the plot plan, and asked him to remove all 11 trees planted on, or growing onto our property.

Understandably he is upset by our request, and the timing of it (why didn’t we tell him sooner, he will have to pay twice, we are terrible people, he’s going to put up a fence etc.)

So, AITA for asking him to move his trees fully to his side of property line, especially in the cases where the trunks might be right on the line?

We are considering offering to pay for half of the removal costs, but really don’t want the trees in our land.

The neighbor should’ve had a survey done before planting the trees.

Then there wouldn’t have been a problem.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story…

It’s time to put up a fence!