Rules about my neighbor’s plants hanging over the property line?.

[carpoor]

My neighor’s Laurel hedge is 3′ taller than their 6′ fence from street to alley, and they aren’t pruning

“my” side,any more, but I was yelled at for pruning too far on their side. What is the law about their responsibility to keep things pruned?

Thanks

CarPoor

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[JustSarah]

You might want to rewrite this post if you want helpful answers. I’ve read it several times and am having a very difficult time understanding what you’re saying/asking.

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[carpoor]

Thanks, SS. Rewrite done.

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[JustSarah]

OK, gotcha. As far as I know, and I’m not a property owner, your neighbors need to keep their plants on their side of the property line, and you yours. There’s no more responsibility or right than that. They don’t have to keep their hedges groomed in a certain way, and you don’t have a right to attempt to groom any of their plants as long as they’re within your neighbors’ property line. Vice versa, of course.

And this all goes out the window if there’s a homeowners’ association involved, but you generally have to go through the HSA with any complaints. Good luck!

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[bluebird]

There isn’t any *requirement* that you keep your branches confined to your yard. So your neighbors aren’t obligated to prune your side. You do however, have the right to cut anything hanging over your yard up to the property line. If it’s the height (3′ over fence) that bothers you, same applies. You can only prune what is actually over your property line.

Different story for the sidewalk or alley. You (as the home owner) are required to maintain a right of way and you can report violations to the city.

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[charlabob]

We actually looked into this a couple of years ago because our new neighbors asked us to cut down branches from our tree that hung over their deck. The law specifically says a property owner can trim a tree that hangs over their property as long as they don’t harm the tree. I suspect the same thing is true of the shrub branches. We said we would be happy to let their landscapers on our property to trim, etc. (We really couldn’t afford to do it ourselves.) So, you’re better off to talk to the neighbors again to set ground rules, since you’re willing to trim your side. If they yelled at you and you only trimmed on your side, they were wrong. Hedges could be different, since it’s probably hard to trim half a a hedge :-)

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[AlkiRagdoll]

I had a similar situation and did check with an attorney. When it comes to a laurel, there are two aspects — width of the plant and its height. As others note, you are free to trim a neighbors plant (width) back to your property line as long as you dont harm the health of the plant. The height is a different matter, unless the laurel bends over on your property at its height. If the laurel blocks your view, but is located on the neighbors property, you are out of luck, unless the neighbor wants to reduce its height. My recommendation- offer to pay for the height reduction by a professional landscaper — that worked in my case.

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[carpoor]

Thanks for the replies. I guess I’ll trim the laurel that overhangs from my yard/sidewalk and live with the height.

CarPoor

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[terrylou9]

I have a laurel hedge on one side and some kind of cedar hedge on the other side of my back yard. Neither neighbor trims their hedges. I really don’t know why the city can’t pass a regulation about maintenance of hedges. In both cases, the hedges are pushing on our fences. The laurel hedge is at least 18 feet in places and the other hedge is at least 14 feet. How can we get an initiative or something passed that says if you have a hedge, you have to maintain all sides of it – top and sides?

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[anonyme]

There are many different ways to maintain a “hedge”, including not at all. Shearing is one of the worst, as it guarantees that the hedge will get continually bigger, demand more and more maintenance, and have a dead inside with a veneer of life on the outside. A lot of the material used for hedging around here (such as laurel, cypress, and photinia) is completely inappropriate for hedging. These are small to large trees that are nearly impossible to maintain and restrict in size. In addition, large-leaved plants are unsightly when hedged due to the highly visible cuts on the leaves. Plants such as boxwood or privet are more appropriate.

Legally, you can only cut what is on your side of the property line and without causing damage to the plant.

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[KatherineL]

As for damaging laurel, that’s pretty much impossible. It grows back from everything, including cutting it back to the ground.

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