After His Neighbors Had The Property Line Officially Surveyed, One Homeowner Was Told Every Tree He Planted Nearby Needed To Go
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Property lines can turn simple landscaping into a surprisingly expensive neighborhood dispute.
One homeowner agrees to a row of fir trees only because the neighbor promises they will stay entirely on his land.
A professional survey later reveals that nearly every new tree is either on the boundary or actually inside the homeowner’s yard.
Let’s see how this one played out.
AITA for asking my neighbor to move newly planted fur 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.
Things were communicated well enough at first…
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.
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.
This is where it gets weird…
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.
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 was adamant on putting up those trees…
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.
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.
This isn’t good!
Only 1 is fully on his land.
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.)
He’s unsure about the request…
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.
Sounds like the neighbor should’ve figured out where the property line was before having the trees planted.
Let’s find out what people on Reddit think about this one.
That’s right! This user knows that none of this is this guy’s fault.
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This user knows that the neighbor needed to have a survey done before planting.
This user knows that the neighbor is intruding!
This user suggests putting up a fence for future reference.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a family who finds a technicality in the law that allows them to keep their pool after their neighbors report it.
This user knows that the guy should have paid for the survey.
The survey showed six of the twelve trees planted squarely on OP’s property, with several more sitting directly on the line.
Folks overwhelmingly backed OP, arguing the neighbor should have confirmed the boundary before paying to plant anything there.
Nothing grows a property dispute faster than planting first and surveying later.
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