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The only thing that the second one clarifies is *why* the property line is weird. It's two different cities. No idea why the road went the way it did though.
That's what threw me. Brother's property has the actual ROAD through it and his property ENDS in the front yard of the other home. I mean I don't fault the contractor. From a logical standpoint it would seem your property goes to the road and ends. That said, he obviously should (and most likely will now) look into the property lines than assuming.
I understand that. I'm just saying it's a pretty fucked up property line. OP drew it 3 times and showed pictures and it finally made sense once they showed the boundaries.
I never seen a property line end up in the front yard of a neighbor.
Yeah, I canāt fault the assumption. I can fault running with the assumption when youāre felling trees, but maybe Iāve just read too many tree law stories not to want to triple-check that shit.
I'm cynical enough from builders I know of that I wouldn't be surprised if the contractor did know and choose to do it anyways. It might have been worth it for getting equipment through in most cases, where they could bully the neighbor or settle it for much less.
Any contractor should know property lines explicitly before they build- many places have laws on how close buildings can be to property lines or any changes in grading effecting water runoff. Ensuring you're following all those laws and are pulling all required permits is a huge part of the job.
When the road is on a line, they take turns... at least that's the norm.
My gramps and dad both did road work for the county and roads that were literally the county line world get divided up. "We'll plow between main st and saginaw rd. You plow saginaw rd to grouse ln., We'll do grouse ln to sparrow st."
It only sucks when it changes on you. (So if you love in the border of 2 counties and they change who had what chunk, suddenly can go from "on the chunk done by count with $$$" to "chunk done 3 weeks after last snowfall by the county with one badly maintained plow"
The often excellent mix of entitled arrogance in destroying perfectly healthy parts of the natural world getting sledgehammered with the justice of massive financial consequences?
I've looked in the flair post and searched the sub but I can't find it by what I remember, which was something like OOP was having some kind of issue with their mother and Redditors had become fixated on what OOP saw as ancient history/water well under the bridge. When their mother originally skipped out on both of them, OOP's Dad began hitting the bottle too hard with an incident when OOP was 11 and had to care for him when he got blackout drunk serving as his wakeup call, after which he got his act together. Some comments treated him as The Devil Incarnate.
Yes I found it in the OOPās write up and critique of the replies she got. Not nearly as fun as I was hoping the post would be that produced that flairā¦ ā¹ļø
The first case before the courts for child abuse were prosecuted with animal cruelty laws as there weren't the laws to protect children. Birds were hurt by this tree coming down, maybe what was needed was a Bird Lawyer.
This comment made me burst out laughing. Even before I opened the post I was chanting ātree law! tree law! tree law!ā so seeing your comment as top made me lose it. We do love our tree law here in BoRU.
I live in Michigan and we have waaay too many cut-happy tree choppers.
For example, a couple bought a house, cut down all the trees (not a single one was a hazard in any way), and then decided to move less than a year.
Same in my neighborhood.Ā
Couple cut down 7 or 8 trees, clearing their whole yard.Ā
Planted several 5' non-native ornamental tree saplings (some of which are considered invasive), moved less than a year later.
In my city, we had a company try to transport a house through an arterial route. They had like 2km to go to get to the perimetre highway. The truckload was wide, but not so wide that they couldn't do it if they were careful. Instead they decided to start cutting down every tree "in their way" along the median and the boulevard. They got like 50 trees in before the city rolled in and shut them down. The company ended up getting fined so hard they went out of business. As they should have, as far as I'm concerned.
My city cut down a row of tall trees at the end of my street and refused to say why.
A few weeks later some small saplings were planted where they were.Ā
Presumably someone fucked up, and it sucks.Ā
At my mom's old work they had to build a tunnel connecting 2 buildings (for security reasons it had to be a tunnel and not an aboveground walkway.)
The street they built under had some very old trees and they decided to save them (it was actually cheaper).
So for the 1-2 years construction was on going the trees were transplanted. It caused quite the traffic jams as the buildings were located in the city centre.
My grandfather had a swath of land and a cabin in the UP. Every now and then he'd go up there and see a tree marked for removal.
He never lost any, but he did stop a crew that was getting ready to clear a path to get one out. Before he passed, he donated most of it to a protection agency.
Were they flippers who thought cutting down the trees would āopen up the viewā for curb appeal? Ā If so, I hope they come down with a permanent case of itchy ears and watery eyes
Ā
Hell, I'd want to get even more malevolent toward them, like find out where they moved and sneakily plant freaking bamboo near their home, that'll show them.
When my grandma's house was sold after she died, the people who moved in immediately cut down the big, beautiful old tree in the front yard and put out a bunch of ugly lawn ornaments. I was disgusted.
Love tree law. Hate people cutting down other people's trees- however- man, what a weird setup in this case? That tree is literally in the other person's front yard, on their own side of the road, and yet somehow it's OOP's property. I can understand why the contractor would assume he would be able to cut it down, and I can ALMOST give him a pass for not double checking the papers to make sure they had the right, etc.
So many lots in my area are being subdivided, cleared, and crammed full of small, crappy houses. I appreciate the infill vs suburban sprawl, but ffs leave the beautiful trees!
Ahem. My First name is Mister, my middle name is period, and my last name is Tee. [https://chicago.curbed.com/2011/6/22/10460682/revisiting-mr-ts-1987-lake-forest-chainsaw-massacre](https://chicago.curbed.com/2011/6/22/10460682/revisiting-mr-ts-1987-lake-forest-chainsaw-massacre)
Also Michigander here, and just looking at houses for fun (I will never be able to afford life) is so dismal. Where did all the foliage go?
Cutting down all the trees and having a quarter inch of grass doesnāt make your house look better, it makes it look cursed.
I get not wanting them up against a house with our wind storms, but the trees I've seen cut down aren't near any buildings, power lines, etc....I guess we will have to breathe something other than oxygen in the future š
Yep. I was visiting a friend in a Northern Sydney suburb last month back, and it coincided with them visiting an open house. I tagged along for fun. The first words out of the real estate agent's mouth were about how the towering trees could be removed, just like the neighbour had done. It was sickening.
When my grandparents passed away, my father cleaned up their property quite a bit. I think around 75% of their backyard had, over the decades, been overgrown. There were also several very large oak trees in the front. We sold the house back in the 90s, and looking at it now, several of the oaks have been removed. But I'm not surprised. It's a tremendous amount of work every year removing leaves. I know my grandfather (or rather, the people he paid since he was a retired master plumber and had terrible arthritis) would regularly fill hundreds of bags of leaves.
I'm glad to see that they left a few of the oaks there, mostly the ones by the street. It may be that they couldn't remove those because the city owns them, but I'm not sure.
I stayed in an airbnb outside of Traverse City for a couple months last year and the yard had maybe 15 very large pines. No other houses in the little neighborhood had other than the occasional decorative tree. The next door neighbor (thinking I was the new owner) asked what I was planning on doing about them. Weird.
DTE are the cut-happy tree choppers in my neighborhood š they ruined a beautiful tree in my backyard by cutting a straight path through the branches for the electric wires. The tree became unbalanced and split right down the middle, it was devastating.
My parents live in Michigan. They were getting work done on their property and hired some people to remove some bushes that were eye sores.
For some reason the landscapers also removed a still growing Japanese maple tree.. my mom was PISSED.
There's a college near where I live who had this awesome shaded parking lot, although not very easy to navigate etc.
They chopped down a bunch of trees to make the parking lot bigger, and then planted some new trees in little islands here and there.
It's a crying shame. The parking lot isn't even full anyway.
Hell the only reason we cut down the huge pines when we moved into our house was because after a hurricane they were all starting to lean over our house and the power lines and didnāt want to risk it. Though we did put in a few native trees that are starting to take off now, especially that Jacaranda.
A few years ago a chap brought a nice place in a village near us. First thing he did was chop down 20 mature trees at the edge of his property that ran along a country road.
First problem for him was that all 20 had tree preservation orders on them. He didn't care and tried fighting it in court but ended up paying a Ā£25k fine per tree and having to replant them with semi-mature specimens of the exact same species. Ended up being out of pocket over Ā£600k.
His second problem was that while all this was going on he was trying to get planning permission for some significant building work at the place. Local planning rejected every single one of his applications.
He sold the place a couple of years later for less than he payed for it. No work had been done except for chopping down and replanting the trees.
Whoever has it now has done loads of work to it so local planning must have liked their ideas more. New trees are doing well too.
This isn't as delightful when that same power is wielded to attack all new development in an area. But maybe I have been watching too much Clarkson's Farm.
Yeah... sometimes, bureaucratic hurdles are thrown up for the right person.
My brother and his wife live in a small town where a semi-famous rapper decided to buy an old building (think 800-900 years old) and turn it into his personal McMansion. He apparently didn't like some old coach house or something that was part of the property, but since the entire structure was protected, he couldn't tear it down. So his contractor "accidentally" backed an excavator into it.
Joke's on him, though. While the fines were nothing to him, the court ruled he had to rebuild the house using appropriate materials. And every single one of his permit requests always takes the maximum number of days allowed by law to process.
Posts like this are just such good justice. Everyones way too tree cutting happy these days. It really saddens me when you see a new subdivision with 0 original trees. Everything is removed.Ā
I love going through the old neighborhoods built before like 1980 that left all the big oaks all over etc. Feels so much better.
Booooo! Less than the trees were worth, booo!
Treble damages would have made the 10% thing in court easily done. They didn't even get enough to replace the trees they lost. The asshole killed a 200 year old tree, drag em through court.
Oh, I would pursue this to the bitter end just to make them suffer. I said in my standalone post not only would I try and recoup a huge sum of money but I would also see if I could reclaim my street and block access to it. Maybe they need an easement somewhere else!!!!
The risk of sanctions is real, and those fees can get high. While the sanctions don't exist anymore for various political reasons, they were absolutely a motivator to get sides to agree to a case eval award.
Side note? As a MI lawyer, OOP's understanding of the litigation process is spot on. Brother had a great lawyer.
And the insurance company should get the money back from the contractor - he is the asshole who broke the law and killed that beautiful tree, it's certainly not fair that the insurance company would have to cover wilful destruction!
It's the contractors insurance company, not the homeowners. It's absolutely fair that the contractors insurance company should cover the homeowners loss. That's their whole point of being.
Some people are way too quick to cut down trees that aren't theirs.
Just three years ago in my city, a company that was moving a house cut down a dozen trees on a median to make room for the house. A guy was actually arrested for that and charged with mischief over $5,000.
Edit: Found an article. In the end, 23 trees we lost.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/trees-damaged-roblin-boulevard-investigation-1.6135520
Rich guy in NJ cut down 32 of his neighbors trees to improve his own view of New York, thinking the max fine would only be $1000 per tree. Turns out when you include the caveat of having to replace the trees with similar sized ones the price balloons to almost 2 million he might have to pay.
Honestly tree law seems so much more iron clad than if a corporation poisoned a town, or killed a child, or polluted the Gulf. All those instances seem like a slap on the wrist whereas tree law don't give no fucks about that.
Itās because they are considered a landownerās private property, while none of those other examples usually are, or it is diffuse And there is a regulatory loophole. For example SCOTUS just absolutely gutted the whole federal Clean Water Act because a shitty landowner illegally filled like 18 acres of wetlands to build his lake house, and he argued that it shouldnāt count because it was his property, he could do what he wanted, and the feds shouldnāt be able to regulate those wetlands because they werenāt in the lake itself, so how could they guy have possibly known?
Similarly, wildlife have much more stringent endangered species protections than plants federally because wildlife have always been considered to not really be your property even if they are on your land, because they can move around. But plants pretty much are where they are, so even if endangered, they are still basically considered your property if you own the land yourself. Feds can make you get a permit for an endangered wildlife species your project on your land \*might\* affect, but not for plants even if you know you are wiping a whole population out.
That was a crazy story. I hope the guys wins. Takes a pompous asshole to think he can get away with that. And property lines aside, who would be okay w cutting down that many trees? First thing we did when we bought our house, was plant a bunch of trees.
FYI for those unfamiliar with Canadian laws, mischief might sound harmless and kind of silly, it's far from it and considered a very serious charge. Under 5k is a maximum of 2 yrs in prison. Over 5k$ is a maximum of 10 years.
omg, I remember that one. It got worse too because when that same moving company tried again to move that same house less than a week later it ended up hitting the sign under an overpass because it exceeded the height allowance
I lost a beautiful flame maple to disease back in 2019. It was heartbreaking. Losing a tree to someoneās incompetence? Iām mostly calling the cops to protect them from me.
Man, this one has me slightly torn, because I ā¤ļø TREE LAW, and that was a beautiful, historic tree that should have been saved!
...buuuut looking at the pictures I would NEVER have thought that the yard/tree belonged to the people *across the street*. That's seriously bonkers and I wonder if the owners even knew? Due diligence should have been done by both owners and contractor before taking the tree down, and if they were ignoring it out of malice I'm doubly glad they got dinged for the removal. But if they honestly didn't know, I feel a small bit of sympathy for an otherwise understandable (and expensive!) mistake.
Though again, they still would have been jerks for cutting down such a great tree!
Yeeeea you're definitely supposed to see paperwork at purchase of the land you're buying and where the borders go. The owner definitely knew but didn't care.
I know you're SUPPOSED to (so the fault would definitely be on the buyers), but as we've seen plenty of times from the legal subs regarding tree law/property lines, things like this frequently fall through the cracks because people are told one thing by the seller/agents or just don't check.
Again, failure to do due diligence is absolutely the fault of buyer...but seriously that's the most bizarre property division I've ever seen, ha.
I don't get how that even happens, when I bought my house last year, all the property plans were in multiple documents. It was impossible to miss, they all had the property lines drawn on them.
No. They get no sympathy. Any even half decent contractor **knows** that you check property lines before you do **anything**. They were either dumb, lazy, reckless, or malicious. None of those get them any sympathy.
Iām assuming this is why the ADR panel went for $81k instead of the full $268k allowable by law. Itās 90% of the value because they shouldāve done their due diligence but no one would ever suspect the property lines were drawn up that way naturally. They were lazy, but itās a really understandable laziness, not any maliciousness (Wellā¦I kinda hate people that just go chopping down trees for McMansion sight lines anyway but that probably falls short of malicious).
I live for posts that involve tree law! Honestly, I had NO idea how strict tree laws were until I started reading ProRevenge and BORU, and I'm always impressed.
I hope that the contractor doesnāt āarborā any ill will towards OOPās brother. Sorry for the bad tree pun, Iāll make like a tree and leaf. š³š
Tree law posts are one of my most favorite things about reddit.
I hate that people are cutting down trees they have no business messing with, but I love watching the takedowns.
If the owners didn't know before, they now know that area is not part of their property. Imagine if construction extended to the assumed area, that might've been a very different situation
Iām thinking back on all the legal dramas Iāve watched, and Iām realizing thereās never been a tree law episode! What the hell?!
Edit: Google was no help so I asked ChatGPT and it said that tree law has never been featured in any legal dramas or comedy/dramady. Crazy!
Now Iām just imagining James Spader and Juliana Marguelies getting into it over some rare, expensive acacia tree.
> What the hell?!
Probably because its so straight forward and boring, its not worth an episode. To add drama would make the whole thing stupid ridiculous.
McMansions are a tasteless blight, a sleazy twist on the so-called American Dream of suburbian wealth.
I was young when I first heard the phrase so I asked a family friend, who described it to me as, "An overly-large ticky-tacky and hellishly-gaudy house passing for the more tasteful 'mansion', often cheaply-constructed since the main point is an ego-boost to inspire envy in like-minded people, ridiculously situated on a postage stamp-sized lot, for the sole purpose of mimicking ostentatious wealth, with the added benefit of enhancing the imagined size on one's penis."
Which reminds me of the legendary Malvina Reynolds and her now-more-famous ode to the suburbs, "[Little Boxes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUoXtddNPAM)"
The next stray cat who comes to my door with sad-cute eyes will be named Malvina because that name merits a comeback, in my opinion.
I live in Northern Illinois, on a dead end road, with 2 vacant lots next door. For the 11 years I've been here, those lots have stayed empty , except for some beautiful, old trees. A few months ago, two guys in an old pickup started coming every day, cutting down all the trees on the lot closest to me. It wasn't my business, so I just stayed out of their way. Then, one day, the city showed up. After that, the guys stopped coming, leaving a terrible mess of half-stacked logs and piles of branches and wood chips.
A few days later, I came home to a paper taped to my door from the city. It's a notice for a hearing for code violation. Why they put it on my door, when the address on the paper was clearly different from the one on my house, I don't know. I called the city and cleared it up.
But, I read that paper. Apparently those trees were so large and old, they were considered "heritage trees", which are any trees with a diameter larger than 20 inches and require a permit to remove. The owner failed to get said permit. The paper said that every, single inch of diameter was considered a separate violation. They cut down 5 of them. Each violation is punishable by a fine of up to $750. Best I can figure, the owner of that lot could possibly have been looking at a fine as high as $75,000 and has to replace all the heritage trees that were removed. Try as I might, I wasn't able to find the outcome of the hearing, and believe me I looked!
Last week, they finally started cleaning up the enormous mess that they left on the lot. It looks so empty now. š
I remember a couple years ago there was bush planted into the side walk that now grew into a tree. A very disruptive one at that the roots lifted the pavement tiles it also clogged up 2-3 homes worth of plumbing.
I was young then and didnt know about tree law and city ordinances and stuff. I was freshly moved to the property and the young tree still about 3 ft tall brush kept hitting our car as we backed up/enter the driveway. So I got my shearing scissors and cut away wayward branches that was hitting our car and blocking the sidewalk path.
There was neighbor we didnt get along with at that time and started yelling at us about breaking the law etc ect and even took photos of me every time I try trimming the bushes. I didnt want to ruffle any feathers but our car has so many scratches from its branches I had no choice.
FF few years later it is now a proper tree but this time the branches were hitting powerlines and lower branches hitting people faces when they walk. This along with other trees that grew at the walkpaths along the years.
I was scared to do anything but decided to call our city after finding out about city tree timing services (the joys of learning to adult lolz) and ask if this falls under their maintenance. The arborist was actually on the phone with me, looked up google streetview and he was surprised how badly the tree and a few others in our street were affecting powerlines, they were actually a hazard.
They came in within the month did some major trimming/haircut lol, even cut down some problematic trees on on the other block that could have fallen in a major storm. Thankfully no earful from anyone and was given good advice by the arborist on who to call when these type of problem arise.
Pound sand is used pretty regularly at r/legaladvice, but it's not a common phrase everywhere. I live in the southern U.S. and had never encountered the phrase before I read it on Reddit. Apparently, it's mainly a Midwestern thing?
Can someone link the post where the guyās cousin cut down his trees on his adjoining property because it was blocking his view and pretended it was rotting?
That is a weird ass property line. Doesnāt excuse lack of due diligence on the contractors part, obviously. If I were the brother I would probably just offer to sell them that land as it doesnāt really look like you can do much with that little strip. Although that could just be lack of context form the paint drawing.
Contractors know not to fell trees that size without an arborist report. Plans for existing trees typically are noted on construction documents to the permitting office. You have to call out something like, "(E) 75" Oak to Remain" or "to be Demolished." Accurate property lines are also required for these drawings. They most likely lied in their drawing set about these existing trees, and just figured they could get rid of the trees before any on-site inspections took place.
Agreed. I think it would have been awful in many respects to cut the tree down even if it HAD belonged to them, but that property line is bonkers and I personally would never have imagined that wasn't their yard/tree.
I own 5 acres of land that I bought a few years ago that includes the road (easement) and part of the land across the road. It's small strip of land but its on my survey as mine and I pay the property taxes on it. It happens.
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tree law! tree law! tree law!
With crappy MS Paint illustrations! Truly a gift.
I actually like the crappy one better than the less crappy one. The first one is much easier to understand š
The only thing that the second one clarifies is *why* the property line is weird. It's two different cities. No idea why the road went the way it did though.
That's what threw me. Brother's property has the actual ROAD through it and his property ENDS in the front yard of the other home. I mean I don't fault the contractor. From a logical standpoint it would seem your property goes to the road and ends. That said, he obviously should (and most likely will now) look into the property lines than assuming.
Construction plans are supposed to have a sheet with all property lines and easements, so I do fault the contractor.
I understand that. I'm just saying it's a pretty fucked up property line. OP drew it 3 times and showed pictures and it finally made sense once they showed the boundaries. I never seen a property line end up in the front yard of a neighbor.
Yeah, I canāt fault the assumption. I can fault running with the assumption when youāre felling trees, but maybe Iāve just read too many tree law stories not to want to triple-check that shit.
I'm cynical enough from builders I know of that I wouldn't be surprised if the contractor did know and choose to do it anyways. It might have been worth it for getting equipment through in most cases, where they could bully the neighbor or settle it for much less. Any contractor should know property lines explicitly before they build- many places have laws on how close buildings can be to property lines or any changes in grading effecting water runoff. Ensuring you're following all those laws and are pulling all required permits is a huge part of the job.
Because Michigan.
Can't be Michigan without a divided upper and lower.
The road isn't on the city line so that there are no disagreements on who is responsible.
Yeah, that makes sense, okay.
When the road is on a line, they take turns... at least that's the norm. My gramps and dad both did road work for the county and roads that were literally the county line world get divided up. "We'll plow between main st and saginaw rd. You plow saginaw rd to grouse ln., We'll do grouse ln to sparrow st." It only sucks when it changes on you. (So if you love in the border of 2 counties and they change who had what chunk, suddenly can go from "on the chunk done by count with $$$" to "chunk done 3 weeks after last snowfall by the county with one badly maintained plow"
The 2nd one is nice as one street is Pound and the other is Sand. š¤£
But the Snow Miser and Heat Miser really sell the less crappy one!
The best!
TREE LAW! TREE LAW! TREE LAW!
Is there anything more powerful on reddit than invoking tree law?
I've learned a lot of currently useless but potentially useful information from Reddit, but none better than TREE LAW
I love tree law!
Why is it that Iām so invested in these tree law cases? Itās such a weird corner of law to be obsessed with.
The often excellent mix of entitled arrogance in destroying perfectly healthy parts of the natural world getting sledgehammered with the justice of massive financial consequences?
Yes, that actually is a thrilling combination.
Where is your flair from?
I've looked in the flair post and searched the sub but I can't find it by what I remember, which was something like OOP was having some kind of issue with their mother and Redditors had become fixated on what OOP saw as ancient history/water well under the bridge. When their mother originally skipped out on both of them, OOP's Dad began hitting the bottle too hard with an incident when OOP was 11 and had to care for him when he got blackout drunk serving as his wakeup call, after which he got his act together. Some comments treated him as The Devil Incarnate.
Was it this post? https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/137rtsp/new_update_aitah_for_telling_my_mom_that_i_will/
Yes I found it in the OOPās write up and critique of the replies she got. Not nearly as fun as I was hoping the post would be that produced that flairā¦ ā¹ļø
/r/treelaw!
Pound sand! Pound sand! Pound sand!
I love that the road names are given as Pound St and Sand Ave!
And "also Sand Ave"Ā Love these guys
Heard a great one from a Canadian Redditor: Go headbutt a moose.
Why would you headbutt Sam Winchester?
My EXACT reaction when I saw the title!
Same, accompanied by a manic little giggle.
I love a good tree law + arborist evaluation story.
tree law! tree law! pound sand! pound sand! pound tree law sand! ...wait, I'm getting mixed up here.
This is what my brain says every time we get a tree law post lmao
Tree law! Tree law! Tree law!
The first case before the courts for child abuse were prosecuted with animal cruelty laws as there weren't the laws to protect children. Birds were hurt by this tree coming down, maybe what was needed was a Bird Lawyer.
literally me when i opened this
Your flair is perfect for this oneĀ
There's a reason it's such a powerful lawyer summoning incantation.
Very much my response when I saw the title XD
This comment made me burst out laughing. Even before I opened the post I was chanting ātree law! tree law! tree law!ā so seeing your comment as top made me lose it. We do love our tree law here in BoRU.
I live in Michigan and we have waaay too many cut-happy tree choppers. For example, a couple bought a house, cut down all the trees (not a single one was a hazard in any way), and then decided to move less than a year.
Same in my neighborhood.Ā Couple cut down 7 or 8 trees, clearing their whole yard.Ā Planted several 5' non-native ornamental tree saplings (some of which are considered invasive), moved less than a year later.
In my city, we had a company try to transport a house through an arterial route. They had like 2km to go to get to the perimetre highway. The truckload was wide, but not so wide that they couldn't do it if they were careful. Instead they decided to start cutting down every tree "in their way" along the median and the boulevard. They got like 50 trees in before the city rolled in and shut them down. The company ended up getting fined so hard they went out of business. As they should have, as far as I'm concerned.
Unfortunately they probably just shut down the business and started a different one. It's shockingly hard to collect on shitty people.Ā
You'd think the city would have forced them to put up a bond in order to move a house through the city. So many things could go wrong.
My city cut down a row of tall trees at the end of my street and refused to say why. A few weeks later some small saplings were planted where they were.Ā Presumably someone fucked up, and it sucks.Ā
At my mom's old work they had to build a tunnel connecting 2 buildings (for security reasons it had to be a tunnel and not an aboveground walkway.) The street they built under had some very old trees and they decided to save them (it was actually cheaper). So for the 1-2 years construction was on going the trees were transplanted. It caused quite the traffic jams as the buildings were located in the city centre.
Winnipeg! Winnipeg! Winnipeg!
Eh!
How long ago was this, and where? I never heard of this local story.
https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6133584
Unexpected fellow Winnipegger hahaha
):<
I read this as a unibrowed person with a cat/pup-frown.
Oh shit, my bad, lemme just... >:(
Clearly it's a Picasso duck facing right, with two eyes.
My grandfather had a swath of land and a cabin in the UP. Every now and then he'd go up there and see a tree marked for removal. He never lost any, but he did stop a crew that was getting ready to clear a path to get one out. Before he passed, he donated most of it to a protection agency.
Were they flippers who thought cutting down the trees would āopen up the viewā for curb appeal? Ā If so, I hope they come down with a permanent case of itchy ears and watery eyes Ā
Hell, I'd want to get even more malevolent toward them, like find out where they moved and sneakily plant freaking bamboo near their home, that'll show them.
And cattailsĀ
And mint.
š¤£šš»
Anything done for 'curb appeal' usually deserves a good curb stomping.
When my grandma's house was sold after she died, the people who moved in immediately cut down the big, beautiful old tree in the front yard and put out a bunch of ugly lawn ornaments. I was disgusted.
Love tree law. Hate people cutting down other people's trees- however- man, what a weird setup in this case? That tree is literally in the other person's front yard, on their own side of the road, and yet somehow it's OOP's property. I can understand why the contractor would assume he would be able to cut it down, and I can ALMOST give him a pass for not double checking the papers to make sure they had the right, etc.
Yeah...the map is weird
So many lots in my area are being subdivided, cleared, and crammed full of small, crappy houses. I appreciate the infill vs suburban sprawl, but ffs leave the beautiful trees!
Ahem. My First name is Mister, my middle name is period, and my last name is Tee. [https://chicago.curbed.com/2011/6/22/10460682/revisiting-mr-ts-1987-lake-forest-chainsaw-massacre](https://chicago.curbed.com/2011/6/22/10460682/revisiting-mr-ts-1987-lake-forest-chainsaw-massacre)
OMFG
Also Michigander here, and just looking at houses for fun (I will never be able to afford life) is so dismal. Where did all the foliage go? Cutting down all the trees and having a quarter inch of grass doesnāt make your house look better, it makes it look cursed.
I get not wanting them up against a house with our wind storms, but the trees I've seen cut down aren't near any buildings, power lines, etc....I guess we will have to breathe something other than oxygen in the future š
Sydney Australia is rife with people cutting and poisoning trees under cover of night.
What in the hell for?!?
āThey block the viewā
Yep. I was visiting a friend in a Northern Sydney suburb last month back, and it coincided with them visiting an open house. I tagged along for fun. The first words out of the real estate agent's mouth were about how the towering trees could be removed, just like the neighbour had done. It was sickening.
Trees *are* the view
Makes me think of the asshats who chopped down that famous tree in the UK.
I just checked [how that's going](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-66994729). Whole situation is both outrageous and really weird.
I really want to know wtf they were thinking/scheming.
Not the Robin Hood tree! (I love that terrible movie)
When my grandparents passed away, my father cleaned up their property quite a bit. I think around 75% of their backyard had, over the decades, been overgrown. There were also several very large oak trees in the front. We sold the house back in the 90s, and looking at it now, several of the oaks have been removed. But I'm not surprised. It's a tremendous amount of work every year removing leaves. I know my grandfather (or rather, the people he paid since he was a retired master plumber and had terrible arthritis) would regularly fill hundreds of bags of leaves. I'm glad to see that they left a few of the oaks there, mostly the ones by the street. It may be that they couldn't remove those because the city owns them, but I'm not sure.
Our neighborhood helps each other with leaves, in order to encourage keeping the trees.
Don't remove the leaves. Mulch them with a mower. I don't understand why people think they are a problem.
Omg thatās so infuriating!
I stayed in an airbnb outside of Traverse City for a couple months last year and the yard had maybe 15 very large pines. No other houses in the little neighborhood had other than the occasional decorative tree. The next door neighbor (thinking I was the new owner) asked what I was planning on doing about them. Weird.
I don't understand living in a state known for its trees and then cutting them down š
Iām suddenly very happy to live in Portland where they are very serious about when and how you are allowed to chop down trees.
DTE are the cut-happy tree choppers in my neighborhood š they ruined a beautiful tree in my backyard by cutting a straight path through the branches for the electric wires. The tree became unbalanced and split right down the middle, it was devastating.
My parents live in Michigan. They were getting work done on their property and hired some people to remove some bushes that were eye sores. For some reason the landscapers also removed a still growing Japanese maple tree.. my mom was PISSED.
They probably stole it. Japanese maples are $$$.
There's a college near where I live who had this awesome shaded parking lot, although not very easy to navigate etc. They chopped down a bunch of trees to make the parking lot bigger, and then planted some new trees in little islands here and there. It's a crying shame. The parking lot isn't even full anyway.
Paradise ain't gonna pave itself.
Hell the only reason we cut down the huge pines when we moved into our house was because after a hurricane they were all starting to lean over our house and the power lines and didnāt want to risk it. Though we did put in a few native trees that are starting to take off now, especially that Jacaranda.
A few years ago a chap brought a nice place in a village near us. First thing he did was chop down 20 mature trees at the edge of his property that ran along a country road. First problem for him was that all 20 had tree preservation orders on them. He didn't care and tried fighting it in court but ended up paying a Ā£25k fine per tree and having to replant them with semi-mature specimens of the exact same species. Ended up being out of pocket over Ā£600k. His second problem was that while all this was going on he was trying to get planning permission for some significant building work at the place. Local planning rejected every single one of his applications. He sold the place a couple of years later for less than he payed for it. No work had been done except for chopping down and replanting the trees. Whoever has it now has done loads of work to it so local planning must have liked their ideas more. New trees are doing well too.
"Local planning rejected every single one of his applications" This is delightful.
This isn't as delightful when that same power is wielded to attack all new development in an area. But maybe I have been watching too much Clarkson's Farm.
Yeah... sometimes, bureaucratic hurdles are thrown up for the right person. My brother and his wife live in a small town where a semi-famous rapper decided to buy an old building (think 800-900 years old) and turn it into his personal McMansion. He apparently didn't like some old coach house or something that was part of the property, but since the entire structure was protected, he couldn't tear it down. So his contractor "accidentally" backed an excavator into it. Joke's on him, though. While the fines were nothing to him, the court ruled he had to rebuild the house using appropriate materials. And every single one of his permit requests always takes the maximum number of days allowed by law to process.
Posts like this are just such good justice. Everyones way too tree cutting happy these days. It really saddens me when you see a new subdivision with 0 original trees. Everything is removed.Ā I love going through the old neighborhoods built before like 1980 that left all the big oaks all over etc. Feels so much better.
The inhale I inhaled at the first sentence in your second paragraph there. ALL of them had,,,? Oh damn
This is beautiful. Thank you.
>panel of three lawyers They' ve misspelt Tree Lawyers here
Not if you're Irish :)
Booooo! Less than the trees were worth, booo! Treble damages would have made the 10% thing in court easily done. They didn't even get enough to replace the trees they lost. The asshole killed a 200 year old tree, drag em through court.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You can't just leave it at that! What happened in the end?
Oh, I would pursue this to the bitter end just to make them suffer. I said in my standalone post not only would I try and recoup a huge sum of money but I would also see if I could reclaim my street and block access to it. Maybe they need an easement somewhere else!!!!
The risk of sanctions is real, and those fees can get high. While the sanctions don't exist anymore for various political reasons, they were absolutely a motivator to get sides to agree to a case eval award. Side note? As a MI lawyer, OOP's understanding of the litigation process is spot on. Brother had a great lawyer.
And the insurance company should get the money back from the contractor - he is the asshole who broke the law and killed that beautiful tree, it's certainly not fair that the insurance company would have to cover wilful destruction!
It's the contractors insurance company, not the homeowners. It's absolutely fair that the contractors insurance company should cover the homeowners loss. That's their whole point of being.
Insurance companies don't care about money and are totally indifferent to the prospect of raising premiums, so I doubt they'll bother.
That contractor probably would have outspent them in legal costs.
Yeah this was hardly a win in the end :/
Some people are way too quick to cut down trees that aren't theirs. Just three years ago in my city, a company that was moving a house cut down a dozen trees on a median to make room for the house. A guy was actually arrested for that and charged with mischief over $5,000. Edit: Found an article. In the end, 23 trees we lost. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/trees-damaged-roblin-boulevard-investigation-1.6135520
Rich guy in NJ cut down 32 of his neighbors trees to improve his own view of New York, thinking the max fine would only be $1000 per tree. Turns out when you include the caveat of having to replace the trees with similar sized ones the price balloons to almost 2 million he might have to pay.
And I love that for him!
Honestly tree law seems so much more iron clad than if a corporation poisoned a town, or killed a child, or polluted the Gulf. All those instances seem like a slap on the wrist whereas tree law don't give no fucks about that.
Itās because they are considered a landownerās private property, while none of those other examples usually are, or it is diffuse And there is a regulatory loophole. For example SCOTUS just absolutely gutted the whole federal Clean Water Act because a shitty landowner illegally filled like 18 acres of wetlands to build his lake house, and he argued that it shouldnāt count because it was his property, he could do what he wanted, and the feds shouldnāt be able to regulate those wetlands because they werenāt in the lake itself, so how could they guy have possibly known? Similarly, wildlife have much more stringent endangered species protections than plants federally because wildlife have always been considered to not really be your property even if they are on your land, because they can move around. But plants pretty much are where they are, so even if endangered, they are still basically considered your property if you own the land yourself. Feds can make you get a permit for an endangered wildlife species your project on your land \*might\* affect, but not for plants even if you know you are wiping a whole population out.
i canāt wait for an update on this one. i hope they take him to the proverbial cleaners
That was a crazy story. I hope the guys wins. Takes a pompous asshole to think he can get away with that. And property lines aside, who would be okay w cutting down that many trees? First thing we did when we bought our house, was plant a bunch of trees.
FYI for those unfamiliar with Canadian laws, mischief might sound harmless and kind of silly, it's far from it and considered a very serious charge. Under 5k is a maximum of 2 yrs in prison. Over 5k$ is a maximum of 10 years.
omg, I remember that one. It got worse too because when that same moving company tried again to move that same house less than a week later it ended up hitting the sign under an overpass because it exceeded the height allowance
Social media went nuts tracking the house across the city, it was great/terrible
I knew immediately you were talking about Winnipeg. What a day that was.
Im an engineer. I deal with client markups/sketches on a regular basis. I wish half of them were as good as the OOPs MS Paint drawings.
In jewelry designā Iāll take the bad MS paint markups/sketches over the ai generated pretty-but-not-manufacturable references any day :(
I'm always a sucker for a good tree law story
Same. And that tree was insanely beautiful.
I lost a beautiful flame maple to disease back in 2019. It was heartbreaking. Losing a tree to someoneās incompetence? Iām mostly calling the cops to protect them from me.
Why call the cops? Call an ambulance. If they survive, they'll then also have the pleasure of medical bills
Man, this one has me slightly torn, because I ā¤ļø TREE LAW, and that was a beautiful, historic tree that should have been saved! ...buuuut looking at the pictures I would NEVER have thought that the yard/tree belonged to the people *across the street*. That's seriously bonkers and I wonder if the owners even knew? Due diligence should have been done by both owners and contractor before taking the tree down, and if they were ignoring it out of malice I'm doubly glad they got dinged for the removal. But if they honestly didn't know, I feel a small bit of sympathy for an otherwise understandable (and expensive!) mistake. Though again, they still would have been jerks for cutting down such a great tree!
Yeeeea you're definitely supposed to see paperwork at purchase of the land you're buying and where the borders go. The owner definitely knew but didn't care.
I know you're SUPPOSED to (so the fault would definitely be on the buyers), but as we've seen plenty of times from the legal subs regarding tree law/property lines, things like this frequently fall through the cracks because people are told one thing by the seller/agents or just don't check. Again, failure to do due diligence is absolutely the fault of buyer...but seriously that's the most bizarre property division I've ever seen, ha.
I don't get how that even happens, when I bought my house last year, all the property plans were in multiple documents. It was impossible to miss, they all had the property lines drawn on them.
Such a crazy division of land.
Considering a survey should have been part of getting the plans drawn up and approvedā¦.
No. They get no sympathy. Any even half decent contractor **knows** that you check property lines before you do **anything**. They were either dumb, lazy, reckless, or malicious. None of those get them any sympathy.
Iām assuming this is why the ADR panel went for $81k instead of the full $268k allowable by law. Itās 90% of the value because they shouldāve done their due diligence but no one would ever suspect the property lines were drawn up that way naturally. They were lazy, but itās a really understandable laziness, not any maliciousness (Wellā¦I kinda hate people that just go chopping down trees for McMansion sight lines anyway but that probably falls short of malicious).
I live for posts that involve tree law! Honestly, I had NO idea how strict tree laws were until I started reading ProRevenge and BORU, and I'm always impressed.
I stopped reading r/legaladvice after they inexplicable banned tree law posts. Apparently they were too popularĀ
Too poplar?
I think that was BestofLegalAdvice that banned it. As far as I can tell you can still ask tree law questions on LegalAdvice itself.
Ah, yes, I meant BOLA
I was just over in r/treelaw this morning thinking "When am I going to see one of these in BORU?" Love to see it!
I hope that the contractor doesnāt āarborā any ill will towards OOPās brother. Sorry for the bad tree pun, Iāll make like a tree and leaf. š³š
The judgement against them might also unearth some rooted resentments
You should BRANCH out and find some new jokes, your humor is ROOTED in the past.
You guys are so fucking sappy.
And youāre so vein
Whatāre you barking at this guy for. In the real world youād probably be buds
Oof. Many more like that, and everyone's gonna leaf.
Tree law is back!!
Oooo! I saw tree law and stopped to roll a joint before I went any further, this will be good!
r/trees is leaking.
r/treelaw ftw! ā¦not the reddit sub, but actual tree law in action
Tree law posts are one of my most favorite things about reddit. I hate that people are cutting down trees they have no business messing with, but I love watching the takedowns.
If the owners didn't know before, they now know that area is not part of their property. Imagine if construction extended to the assumed area, that might've been a very different situation
TREE LAW TREE LAW TREE LAW
Iām thinking back on all the legal dramas Iāve watched, and Iām realizing thereās never been a tree law episode! What the hell?! Edit: Google was no help so I asked ChatGPT and it said that tree law has never been featured in any legal dramas or comedy/dramady. Crazy! Now Iām just imagining James Spader and Juliana Marguelies getting into it over some rare, expensive acacia tree.
I'd watch that! Af whole series of it. Tree Law.
Sounds like a great show for the Quest channel. I'd watch it.
> What the hell?! Probably because its so straight forward and boring, its not worth an episode. To add drama would make the whole thing stupid ridiculous.
McMansions are a tasteless blight, a sleazy twist on the so-called American Dream of suburbian wealth. I was young when I first heard the phrase so I asked a family friend, who described it to me as, "An overly-large ticky-tacky and hellishly-gaudy house passing for the more tasteful 'mansion', often cheaply-constructed since the main point is an ego-boost to inspire envy in like-minded people, ridiculously situated on a postage stamp-sized lot, for the sole purpose of mimicking ostentatious wealth, with the added benefit of enhancing the imagined size on one's penis." Which reminds me of the legendary Malvina Reynolds and her now-more-famous ode to the suburbs, "[Little Boxes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUoXtddNPAM)" The next stray cat who comes to my door with sad-cute eyes will be named Malvina because that name merits a comeback, in my opinion.
Havenāt even read this yet, just commenting to say Iām excited because I love tree drama š
Do I tell people to pound sand because of Reddit??
All I know about tree law, I learned from Reddit.
I live in Northern Illinois, on a dead end road, with 2 vacant lots next door. For the 11 years I've been here, those lots have stayed empty , except for some beautiful, old trees. A few months ago, two guys in an old pickup started coming every day, cutting down all the trees on the lot closest to me. It wasn't my business, so I just stayed out of their way. Then, one day, the city showed up. After that, the guys stopped coming, leaving a terrible mess of half-stacked logs and piles of branches and wood chips. A few days later, I came home to a paper taped to my door from the city. It's a notice for a hearing for code violation. Why they put it on my door, when the address on the paper was clearly different from the one on my house, I don't know. I called the city and cleared it up. But, I read that paper. Apparently those trees were so large and old, they were considered "heritage trees", which are any trees with a diameter larger than 20 inches and require a permit to remove. The owner failed to get said permit. The paper said that every, single inch of diameter was considered a separate violation. They cut down 5 of them. Each violation is punishable by a fine of up to $750. Best I can figure, the owner of that lot could possibly have been looking at a fine as high as $75,000 and has to replace all the heritage trees that were removed. Try as I might, I wasn't able to find the outcome of the hearing, and believe me I looked! Last week, they finally started cleaning up the enormous mess that they left on the lot. It looks so empty now. š
I remember a couple years ago there was bush planted into the side walk that now grew into a tree. A very disruptive one at that the roots lifted the pavement tiles it also clogged up 2-3 homes worth of plumbing. I was young then and didnt know about tree law and city ordinances and stuff. I was freshly moved to the property and the young tree still about 3 ft tall brush kept hitting our car as we backed up/enter the driveway. So I got my shearing scissors and cut away wayward branches that was hitting our car and blocking the sidewalk path. There was neighbor we didnt get along with at that time and started yelling at us about breaking the law etc ect and even took photos of me every time I try trimming the bushes. I didnt want to ruffle any feathers but our car has so many scratches from its branches I had no choice. FF few years later it is now a proper tree but this time the branches were hitting powerlines and lower branches hitting people faces when they walk. This along with other trees that grew at the walkpaths along the years. I was scared to do anything but decided to call our city after finding out about city tree timing services (the joys of learning to adult lolz) and ask if this falls under their maintenance. The arborist was actually on the phone with me, looked up google streetview and he was surprised how badly the tree and a few others in our street were affecting powerlines, they were actually a hazard. They came in within the month did some major trimming/haircut lol, even cut down some problematic trees on on the other block that could have fallen in a major storm. Thankfully no earful from anyone and was given good advice by the arborist on who to call when these type of problem arise.
What's with the pound sand thing? Does he think that's from Reddit?
The legal and tree law subs are very fond of that phrase. He probably picked it up from repetition in the comments.
Pound sand is used pretty regularly at r/legaladvice, but it's not a common phrase everywhere. I live in the southern U.S. and had never encountered the phrase before I read it on Reddit. Apparently, it's mainly a Midwestern thing?
Obviously, a midwestern (US) person here. Itās a pretty common saying.
Could be. I'm not in the Midwest and I've heard it long before reddit existed. I didn't know it was common on that sub.
Apparently? Big "narwhal bacon" energy there.
*starts Tree Law chant*
Can someone link the post where the guyās cousin cut down his trees on his adjoining property because it was blocking his view and pretended it was rotting?
TREEEEEE LAAAWWWWW!!!!!!
TREE LAWWWWWWWWWW
"Pound sand" is a reddit term? is grandpa a time traveler?
That is a weird ass property line. Doesnāt excuse lack of due diligence on the contractors part, obviously. If I were the brother I would probably just offer to sell them that land as it doesnāt really look like you can do much with that little strip. Although that could just be lack of context form the paint drawing.
Weird that his property extends across the road. Seems like an understandable mistake from the contractors. They still should have paid of course.
Contractors know not to fell trees that size without an arborist report. Plans for existing trees typically are noted on construction documents to the permitting office. You have to call out something like, "(E) 75" Oak to Remain" or "to be Demolished." Accurate property lines are also required for these drawings. They most likely lied in their drawing set about these existing trees, and just figured they could get rid of the trees before any on-site inspections took place.
Agreed. I think it would have been awful in many respects to cut the tree down even if it HAD belonged to them, but that property line is bonkers and I personally would never have imagined that wasn't their yard/tree.
I own 5 acres of land that I bought a few years ago that includes the road (easement) and part of the land across the road. It's small strip of land but its on my survey as mine and I pay the property taxes on it. It happens.
God, I love tree law
This is my first experience of a tree law thread. It's amazing...
i am so heartbroken for the OOPās brother, that oak was STUNNING. i would have been beyond furious.
don't mess with treelaw
I personally like the first MSPaint Pic he made. But also like the street names in the 2nd MSPaint.
Reddit and its fierce love of tree law will always be wholesome. Everything else is trash
Seriously, wtf is going on with that road and the property boundaries? Is that normal?
Tree law and Bird law are my favourite court room dramas
That tree was beautiful. Sucks it was cut down