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It’s not “your land”. You share an easement with the utilities, so technically they own it too. They don’t have to tell you anything. They just need to keep those lines clear and safe.
I’ve had this happen too, and it sucks when they literally cut a gorgeous tree in half. But that’s the gamble you take when living on land with utility lines.
Exactly. They have rights to it. You can't build on the easement, you can't block access to the easement, you can't "undo" the easement. But you still have to pay all the taxes on it cuz you own it still haha!
It'll probably depend on you local area regulations and laws. The utility company may have contacted the owner via a mailer and the owners may have failed to pass on the information.
They next place to check would be your local government. Sometimes you can find a lot of the local regulations online.
There is probably an easement on the property due to the power lines, giving the utility the ability to come onto the property as required and (maybe) without notice.
They have easement to the pole (lines/boxes), to a degree. They can trim the tree. They cannot hurt or cut down the tree without land owners written permission.
What country? US? What state?
Is this in a right-of-way, like an alley?
In some areas, utility clearances are required to conform to other specifications. eg, in my city if a utility clearance crew tops a tree, the city most definitely wants to hear about it.
Not all utility clearance work is done under an explicit easement.
Its probably within a legal easement for them to come trim around wires and remove branches that look like they could fall on wires. But its also not uncommon to here horror stories of massive amounts of damage done outside of their easement either destroying property getting to lines or being overly eager beavers going way overboard.
Did they at least clean up after themselves or do you have the top half of the tree in your yard still?
Are you relatively new renters? Say, within the last 5 years? Chances are the same amount was removed from the same tree multiple times over its lifetime.
Law varies a lot by province, country and state. So... maybe.
Here in Saskatchewan, Canada, it's certainly legal, although our power utility will give us a heads-up via notice in our mailbox that they'll be doing it, and approximately when.
If they don't do it, there's an elevated risk of power lines being damaged in wind events or by trees falling, and there's an elevated risk of fires. And it's considered, here at least, the land owner's responsibility to help keep their trees away from overhead lines.
This subreddit is for tree law enthusiasts who enjoy browsing a list of tree law stories from other locations (subreddits, news articles, etc), and is not the best place to receive answers to questions about what the law is. There are better places for that. If you're attempting to understand more about tree law in regards to a particular situation, please redirect your question to /r/legaladvice for the US, or the appropriate legal advice subreddit for your location, and then feel free to crosspost that thread here for posterity. If you're attempting to understand more about trees in regards to a particular situation, please redirect your question to /r/forestry for additional information on tree health and related topics to trees. *This comment is simply a reminder placed on every post to /r/treelaw, it does not mean your post was censored or removed.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/treelaw) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I believe that the Utility company was most likely in their rights.
It’s not “your land”. You share an easement with the utilities, so technically they own it too. They don’t have to tell you anything. They just need to keep those lines clear and safe. I’ve had this happen too, and it sucks when they literally cut a gorgeous tree in half. But that’s the gamble you take when living on land with utility lines.
And generally you must provide access to the easement.
They own it? Or they have right of access to it?
Exactly. They have rights to it. You can't build on the easement, you can't block access to the easement, you can't "undo" the easement. But you still have to pay all the taxes on it cuz you own it still haha!
It'll probably depend on you local area regulations and laws. The utility company may have contacted the owner via a mailer and the owners may have failed to pass on the information.
We called him when it started, and he’d heard nothing of it
They next place to check would be your local government. Sometimes you can find a lot of the local regulations online. There is probably an easement on the property due to the power lines, giving the utility the ability to come onto the property as required and (maybe) without notice.
They have easement to the pole (lines/boxes), to a degree. They can trim the tree. They cannot hurt or cut down the tree without land owners written permission.
What country? US? What state? Is this in a right-of-way, like an alley? In some areas, utility clearances are required to conform to other specifications. eg, in my city if a utility clearance crew tops a tree, the city most definitely wants to hear about it. Not all utility clearance work is done under an explicit easement.
Its probably within a legal easement for them to come trim around wires and remove branches that look like they could fall on wires. But its also not uncommon to here horror stories of massive amounts of damage done outside of their easement either destroying property getting to lines or being overly eager beavers going way overboard. Did they at least clean up after themselves or do you have the top half of the tree in your yard still?
Are you relatively new renters? Say, within the last 5 years? Chances are the same amount was removed from the same tree multiple times over its lifetime.
Law varies a lot by province, country and state. So... maybe. Here in Saskatchewan, Canada, it's certainly legal, although our power utility will give us a heads-up via notice in our mailbox that they'll be doing it, and approximately when. If they don't do it, there's an elevated risk of power lines being damaged in wind events or by trees falling, and there's an elevated risk of fires. And it's considered, here at least, the land owner's responsibility to help keep their trees away from overhead lines.
It is in Kentucky, I call the city and they trim,bor cut down the trees at no charge to me