Tree falls into my property, onto my building.....guess who pays?

[James DeRoest]

I do!

Learn something new every day.

Rotten old tree stump that's about 20 feet high falls over and is leaning on our garage (at our latest acquisition).

Turns out that we have to pay to have it removed! So someone else's tree falls over and damages our building, and we pay????

Still trying to get my head round that. 

The other home owner is sneering at us about this, all I can say is that code control will be spending the rest of the year there by the time I'm done.

[Roy N.]

Originally posted by @James DeRoest:

I do!

Learn something new every day.

Rotten old tree stump that's about 20 feet high falls over and is leaning on our garage (at our latest acquisition).

Turns out that we have to pay to have it removed! So someone else's tree falls over and damages our building, and we pay????

Still trying to get my head round that. 

The other home owner is sneering at us about this, all I can say is that code control will be spending the rest of the year there by the time I'm done.

James,

Not always ... but I can see how it may be in your instance since you just acquire the property.  We had a roof damaged by a neighbours tree a couple of years ago.   We took care have having the tree pruned and roof repaired, then sent the bill to the neighbour - with a letter outlining our expectations he would pony up 75% of the cost.   

When he "sneered" at us, we filed in small claims court and produced the record of our requests that a) he pruned his tree or b) allow us {access onto his property} to prune the tree.   The judge decided he should foot the entire bill.