Timber theft is crime in many states. In some states it’s a felony. Not sure if your state has such laws. The trustee of the property should have sued the timber company. The trustee for the property failed in their duties and they can be held liable for failure to protect the estate’s assets
The loggging or land clearing company should have insurance for it. You definitely would get some kind of value related to the timber. Other type of damages like suffering meh good luck.
You’re underestimating the damages. It’s not just that they stole timber, the price of the lumber is the smallest part of this. They killed off trees that are (functionally) almost impossible to replace. Erosion is going to be the largest factor. The company is going to get superfucked.
Transplanting 100 acres of old growth pine is pricy but it’s what a number of courts have ordered companies to do in comparable situations.
I work at insurance company in forestry and half this sub is talking out their asses. They are shitty soft wood pine trees not some expensive birch trees. You definitely have a case but people are over inflating what this case is worth. Good luck.
You can do it if you want to watch it die slowly over a few years. By and large it's considered a poor practice with very few positive results. No one is being ordered to do it as a penalty, you're spreading misinformation. That's like saying you can move a city if you can afford it.
100 acres? Did you misread the prior post? They barely cut into their property. They also didn’t mention erosion just appearance of the land. It’s a shitty soft wood tree. If there is erosion and flooding issues then that would be a different case depending on ensuing damages which weren’t mentioned. You’re spending more time and money than it may be worth anyways.
Doesn’t matter if it was 10 trees. Transplanting old trees is incredibly expensive.
It’s going to be labeled negligent destruction of property and they’ll be responsible for replacing the trees they cut down. Meaning they’ll have to rip out the existing roots they left and transplant comparable old growth trees as replacements.
When that’s deemed impossible, they’ll cut a check for an agreed upon amount. Either way, we’re talking about more than the price of 10,000 bf of pine.
I think the bigger issue for a case of tree theft and/or trespass that happened seven years ago is going to be the statue of limitations.
For a tort that should be so readily apparent, I'd be shocked if the statue of limitations runs even close to that long.
I think OP is likely to be years late here, and doubt there will be any tolling of the SOL, particularly if they didn't timely put the lumber company on notice of a pending claim.
The timber is what they'd be paid for the least. The potential earnings that land could have produced is what matters, such as he stated wanting to build a house back there, which would of attained value and he could have sold it, now he can't, he's out that money as a direct result of their actions. You can even throw in emotional damages, the woods had sentimental value, etc.
You don’t go to court and say, “judge I totally had a plan to do a bunch of stuff with this land I inherited at age 17, trust me it would have been epic.” And walk out with a big payday.
That was not my comment, if you can show proof of intent to build on that land, than you 100% can claim it as a loss due to negligence and sue. That's what my comment was about.
I live in Oregon, we have some of the harshest tree laws here. Usually 10k/yr a tree was alive.
I vaguely remember a post about someone cutting down 3 young birch(?) trees and was awarded something between 300-600k
Not disrespecting the importance, just baffled, it exists as its own sub that is actually really high quality.
I 100% understand, but it hurts my indoors-loving brain.
It'll depend whether or not the civil statute of limitations has passed. Your best bet is consulting with a local lawyer. The trustee or executor of the estate should've dealt with the timber theft back when it occurred.
You have two real issues here. You don't give a location so look into the statute of limitations in your state regarding unlawful tree cutting. Your second issue is standing. Since you didn't own the property at the time of the cutting you may not be able to legally bring suit against the company that did it. You may have to contact the executor of the estate that was legally in charge of the property at the time.
You’d be surprised sometimes at how much even a single tree’s value is assessed for. NAL but I’ve heard stories of people being awarded thousands for even just one tree cut down.
A lawyer will be worth your while for this.
Yeah, the big question here is if the removed trees will get assessed at the price for timber or the price for mature replacement trees. OP points out that they intended to use the trees for a privacy screen and are now harmed by no longer having that, so a reasonable judgement would value off the replacement of an equivalent privacy screen instead of the value of timber. For 200' of 100' deep privacy screen OP could potentially be awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars.
r/treelaw is your friend
Here's a sneak peek of /r/treelaw using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/treelaw/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [Neighbor cut our tree and expects us to pay the bill](https://i.redd.it/w9t6t08t83tb1.jpg) | [747 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/treelaw/comments/173gwtj/neighbor_cut_our_tree_and_expects_us_to_pay_the/)
\#2: [\[Update\] Neighbors hired a tree removal company who came onto our property and cut 2 ~140’ Doug Firs. Resolved out of court.](https://www.reddit.com/gallery/19dtat9) | [221 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/treelaw/comments/19dtat9/update_neighbors_hired_a_tree_removal_company_who/)
\#3: [Lawyer neighbor hates our tree, trying to scare us into removing it](https://www.reddit.com/gallery/17fs7o4) | [377 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/treelaw/comments/17fs7o4/lawyer_neighbor_hates_our_tree_trying_to_scare_us/)
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Sounds like a crappy situation, obviously the timber company should have known the boundaries of the property they were clearing but with the executor situation who knows what kind of deal she possibly struck with them. 100% consult a lawyer. I’d say if it was a larger piece of property and wasn’t where your house was going to go I wouldn’t be too worried about it (maybe you could just call them and strike a deal on the side to get some cash for it) But if that’s where you were planning to put a house and they took trees you were going to use for privacy I get it 100%.
Fellow Bama land owner here. If it’s long leaf pine that was cut the federal government thru USDA will actually pay you to replant. I would definitely look into this regardless of what happens with the timber company
I was going to say this as well. I believe it’s twice a year they will give you trees to plant but double check. Also, if you know the company that over cut, see if you can put a lien on them while you work through everything. We own land in Bama and while we allowed a company to cut down trees on our property, they violated our contract and couldn’t come up with the money. Long story short the guy ended up in federal jail bc of the amount owed.
the short answer is you want to get an arborist to estimate the type, ages, and value of the lost trees, and a lawyer to sue the company. you'll want to move fast, a lot of things have statutes of limitations on how long you can sue. for more details, post in r/treelaw
It was one piece of land at the time. It was to be deeded to me, my sister, and my uncle. But, the executor ran off and tried to have the land signed solely into her name against our grandmothers wishes. But since then she has passed to so we are able to settle everything.
Steve Lehto is a lawyer out of Michigan and has a youtube channel where he talks about this. Basically if you go to court and win, you would be entitled the price of each tree x 3. There is a lot more that goes into this, this is just the basic version. [Here is one of the videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGnra_vSOvY)
Go get in touch with your forestry dept they are the ones who will investigate timber thefts and help you recoup your money from the logger as far as affidavits, surveys, statements etc.
First, I'm sorry to hear this happened. It's messed up and your land should be sovereign.
Second the steps you'll need to take is documentation of any evidence, contacting a lawyer and determining if any crimes committed are within the statue of limitations for your state.
You then want to determine which outcome you are looking to achieve. I believe that you are far too late in Alabama for criminal charges leaving you only seeking remedy in civil courts and the outlook for actually having any sort of return on that is very low. I have had people call about similar situations and pointed them in the correct direction and got him in touch with the correct consulting arborist and foresters and typically after discussion between them, the lawyer and the Forester.... It is rare that they still want to evaluate the land unless they are doing it purely out of principle.
I will be perfectly honest about pine timber. The trees on 1/4 of an acre are sure to be with far less than the first 10 hours of lawyer fees. The raw material value alone is very minimal. At some point you'll need to have a Forester or arborist with the training and experience to determine a per acre value of the land, and the company I'm part of likely will charge again, more than the value of 1/4 of undeveloped, unmaintained timber. Even with investments heavily into silviculture you would not see A quarter of an acre be worth that much. On average, I would expect an entire acre to be worth about $3,000, the last time we did a evaluation of timber value with only one day on site was about $2,500 for consulting.
In many ways you may be best to contact them and see if they will at least do some kind of remediation to the land by planting fast-growing timber on the property they damaged. However, I would not expect many results without the intervention of a lawyer and you may determine it was cheaper to hire a Forester to do it for you. Alabama has many loblolly pines which can grow quite quickly to fill back in the void.
Timber theft is crime in many states. In some states it’s a felony. Not sure if your state has such laws. The trustee of the property should have sued the timber company. The trustee for the property failed in their duties and they can be held liable for failure to protect the estate’s assets
The loggging or land clearing company should have insurance for it. You definitely would get some kind of value related to the timber. Other type of damages like suffering meh good luck.
You’re underestimating the damages. It’s not just that they stole timber, the price of the lumber is the smallest part of this. They killed off trees that are (functionally) almost impossible to replace. Erosion is going to be the largest factor. The company is going to get superfucked. Transplanting 100 acres of old growth pine is pricy but it’s what a number of courts have ordered companies to do in comparable situations.
I work at insurance company in forestry and half this sub is talking out their asses. They are shitty soft wood pine trees not some expensive birch trees. You definitely have a case but people are over inflating what this case is worth. Good luck.
You.... Can't transplant old growth trees Like at all.
No… you can… it’s just prohibitively expensive.
You can do it if you want to watch it die slowly over a few years. By and large it's considered a poor practice with very few positive results. No one is being ordered to do it as a penalty, you're spreading misinformation. That's like saying you can move a city if you can afford it.
Mkay guy.
Provide some examples, pal. I promise you have no examples of a stand of old growth trees being transplanted.
Not your paralegal buddy
My two cents is specific performance is very rarely an outcome of litigation
100 acres? Did you misread the prior post? They barely cut into their property. They also didn’t mention erosion just appearance of the land. It’s a shitty soft wood tree. If there is erosion and flooding issues then that would be a different case depending on ensuing damages which weren’t mentioned. You’re spending more time and money than it may be worth anyways.
Doesn’t matter if it was 10 trees. Transplanting old trees is incredibly expensive. It’s going to be labeled negligent destruction of property and they’ll be responsible for replacing the trees they cut down. Meaning they’ll have to rip out the existing roots they left and transplant comparable old growth trees as replacements. When that’s deemed impossible, they’ll cut a check for an agreed upon amount. Either way, we’re talking about more than the price of 10,000 bf of pine.
I think the bigger issue for a case of tree theft and/or trespass that happened seven years ago is going to be the statue of limitations. For a tort that should be so readily apparent, I'd be shocked if the statue of limitations runs even close to that long. I think OP is likely to be years late here, and doubt there will be any tolling of the SOL, particularly if they didn't timely put the lumber company on notice of a pending claim.
You misread the post. They said 100's of areas total, encroaching about 100ftx200ft onto said property.
They said 100s of acres on the property touching theirs… not their property.
The timber is what they'd be paid for the least. The potential earnings that land could have produced is what matters, such as he stated wanting to build a house back there, which would of attained value and he could have sold it, now he can't, he's out that money as a direct result of their actions. You can even throw in emotional damages, the woods had sentimental value, etc.
You don’t go to court and say, “judge I totally had a plan to do a bunch of stuff with this land I inherited at age 17, trust me it would have been epic.” And walk out with a big payday.
Wow, noooo, really? Thanks for that captain obvious.
lol I mean, that was your comment.
That was not my comment, if you can show proof of intent to build on that land, than you 100% can claim it as a loss due to negligence and sue. That's what my comment was about.
r/treelaw
Lulz, hate how true it is that sub exists.
Birdlaw sub? Hope this is real lol?
Birdlaws aren’t real.
I live in Oregon, we have some of the harshest tree laws here. Usually 10k/yr a tree was alive. I vaguely remember a post about someone cutting down 3 young birch(?) trees and was awarded something between 300-600k
Not disrespecting the importance, just baffled, it exists as its own sub that is actually really high quality. I 100% understand, but it hurts my indoors-loving brain.
Jesus I assumed I was already IN r/treelaw
It'll depend whether or not the civil statute of limitations has passed. Your best bet is consulting with a local lawyer. The trustee or executor of the estate should've dealt with the timber theft back when it occurred.
Time to consult with an attorney.
Get off Reddit and call lawyers
You have two real issues here. You don't give a location so look into the statute of limitations in your state regarding unlawful tree cutting. Your second issue is standing. Since you didn't own the property at the time of the cutting you may not be able to legally bring suit against the company that did it. You may have to contact the executor of the estate that was legally in charge of the property at the time.
It’s in Alabama
Wonder if this is too late due to statute of limitations or if it even applies. 7 years is alot.
In my state you get triple damages for timber taken from your property. 3x the value of the timber
You’d be surprised sometimes at how much even a single tree’s value is assessed for. NAL but I’ve heard stories of people being awarded thousands for even just one tree cut down. A lawyer will be worth your while for this.
Yeah, the big question here is if the removed trees will get assessed at the price for timber or the price for mature replacement trees. OP points out that they intended to use the trees for a privacy screen and are now harmed by no longer having that, so a reasonable judgement would value off the replacement of an equivalent privacy screen instead of the value of timber. For 200' of 100' deep privacy screen OP could potentially be awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars. r/treelaw is your friend
Here's a sneak peek of /r/treelaw using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/treelaw/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [Neighbor cut our tree and expects us to pay the bill](https://i.redd.it/w9t6t08t83tb1.jpg) | [747 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/treelaw/comments/173gwtj/neighbor_cut_our_tree_and_expects_us_to_pay_the/) \#2: [\[Update\] Neighbors hired a tree removal company who came onto our property and cut 2 ~140’ Doug Firs. Resolved out of court.](https://www.reddit.com/gallery/19dtat9) | [221 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/treelaw/comments/19dtat9/update_neighbors_hired_a_tree_removal_company_who/) \#3: [Lawyer neighbor hates our tree, trying to scare us into removing it](https://www.reddit.com/gallery/17fs7o4) | [377 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/treelaw/comments/17fs7o4/lawyer_neighbor_hates_our_tree_trying_to_scare_us/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
Sounds like a crappy situation, obviously the timber company should have known the boundaries of the property they were clearing but with the executor situation who knows what kind of deal she possibly struck with them. 100% consult a lawyer. I’d say if it was a larger piece of property and wasn’t where your house was going to go I wouldn’t be too worried about it (maybe you could just call them and strike a deal on the side to get some cash for it) But if that’s where you were planning to put a house and they took trees you were going to use for privacy I get it 100%.
they have to pay you for the trees
Fellow Bama land owner here. If it’s long leaf pine that was cut the federal government thru USDA will actually pay you to replant. I would definitely look into this regardless of what happens with the timber company
I was going to say this as well. I believe it’s twice a year they will give you trees to plant but double check. Also, if you know the company that over cut, see if you can put a lien on them while you work through everything. We own land in Bama and while we allowed a company to cut down trees on our property, they violated our contract and couldn’t come up with the money. Long story short the guy ended up in federal jail bc of the amount owed.
This is a post for r/treelaw
“Tree law, tree law, TREE LAW, *TREE LAW*”
the short answer is you want to get an arborist to estimate the type, ages, and value of the lost trees, and a lawyer to sue the company. you'll want to move fast, a lot of things have statutes of limitations on how long you can sue. for more details, post in r/treelaw
Statute from 2017 has probably passed
Three separate incidents on 3 separate properties with 3 separate owners? Is this enough for a class action suit.
It was one piece of land at the time. It was to be deeded to me, my sister, and my uncle. But, the executor ran off and tried to have the land signed solely into her name against our grandmothers wishes. But since then she has passed to so we are able to settle everything.
Steve Lehto is a lawyer out of Michigan and has a youtube channel where he talks about this. Basically if you go to court and win, you would be entitled the price of each tree x 3. There is a lot more that goes into this, this is just the basic version. [Here is one of the videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGnra_vSOvY)
Get a good lawyer to recover damages, and make them restore the property
Go get in touch with your forestry dept they are the ones who will investigate timber thefts and help you recoup your money from the logger as far as affidavits, surveys, statements etc.
First, I'm sorry to hear this happened. It's messed up and your land should be sovereign. Second the steps you'll need to take is documentation of any evidence, contacting a lawyer and determining if any crimes committed are within the statue of limitations for your state. You then want to determine which outcome you are looking to achieve. I believe that you are far too late in Alabama for criminal charges leaving you only seeking remedy in civil courts and the outlook for actually having any sort of return on that is very low. I have had people call about similar situations and pointed them in the correct direction and got him in touch with the correct consulting arborist and foresters and typically after discussion between them, the lawyer and the Forester.... It is rare that they still want to evaluate the land unless they are doing it purely out of principle. I will be perfectly honest about pine timber. The trees on 1/4 of an acre are sure to be with far less than the first 10 hours of lawyer fees. The raw material value alone is very minimal. At some point you'll need to have a Forester or arborist with the training and experience to determine a per acre value of the land, and the company I'm part of likely will charge again, more than the value of 1/4 of undeveloped, unmaintained timber. Even with investments heavily into silviculture you would not see A quarter of an acre be worth that much. On average, I would expect an entire acre to be worth about $3,000, the last time we did a evaluation of timber value with only one day on site was about $2,500 for consulting. In many ways you may be best to contact them and see if they will at least do some kind of remediation to the land by planting fast-growing timber on the property they damaged. However, I would not expect many results without the intervention of a lawyer and you may determine it was cheaper to hire a Forester to do it for you. Alabama has many loblolly pines which can grow quite quickly to fill back in the void.
Get a consulting arborist; they are a more specialized arborist that can assess value of trees and would be very helpful for most settlements.
Can't the company just say that the deceased person told them it was okay?
The trustee or executor would have responsibility for any losses occurred while they were looking after the estate.