I remember buying my first home. It was a fixer upper and needed some work both inside and out which can be really wonderful since you can decide exactly how you want everything to look.

The problem with fixing things up yourself is that you might accidentally make a big mistake in the process, such as the mistake the couple makes in this story.

They were just trying to clean up their backyard, but now they’re feuding with the next door neighbors.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for accidentally cutting my neighbor’s tree

My partner and I recently bought our first home.

During the summer, we decided to clean up the backyard, it was a bit overgrown and messy, so we wanted to get it looking nice and start a garden.

There’s a fence between our property and our next door neighbor’s.

They removed a tree during the cleanup process.

During the cleanup, we cut down a Manitoba Maple that had started growing right along the fence line on our side.

It wasn’t a planned tree, more like something that had seeded itself and started growing wild, it was about 6 feet high and the diameter of the trunk was about 3 inches, and we figured we’d replace it with flowers and some landscaping.

It turns out the tree wasn’t actually on our property.

Apparently, when the neighbor put up the fence, he didn’t build it on the actual property line, it was built a few feet into his own yard. So even though the tree looked like it was on our side of the fence, it was technically on his land.

We had no idea.

The neighbor is furious.

When he noticed the tree was gone, he came outside visibly angry and started yelling at us.

We apologized right away and explained that we genuinely believed it was on our property, and shared our plan to replace it with flowers and landscaping.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t satisfied.

He’s actually the tenant, and he reported the situation to his landlord, who then sent us a letter stating they intend to pursue legal action.

They find this situation very frustrating.

On top of that, we’re now frustrated because, due to how the fence is placed, we have to maintain this strip of land on “our” side of the fence; mowing, weeding, dealing with plants, even though it’s technically still his property.

It doesn’t feel fair that we’re responsible for upkeep on a piece of land that we don’t actually own and can’t make decisions about.

AITA for accidentally cutting down my neighbor’s tree, but offering to replace it with other landscaping?

It really is too bad that the fence was placed in the wrong place.

Let’s see what advice Reddit has about this situation.

They needed to get a survey done before doing yardwork.

This person suggests putting up a second fence.

Here’s another vote for a second fence.

They learned this lesson the hard way.

Never assume you know where the property line is.

If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.