Greetings:

My wife and I own a house in Birmingham, Alabama that we are remodeling on the weekends (we live about 120 miles away, but still in Alabama). Two weekends ago, we noticed our neighbor had started cutting limbs and brush on his side of the fence line, which was fine with us. We skipped Memorial Day weekend, and when we returned last weekend (May 31), we found that the neighbor had cut ALL the brush and trees down on both sides of the fence to within 2-3 feet of the ground (the fence is about 5 feet high). I called the sheriff's office, and the responding officer stated that this was a civil matter. The officer did notice that the neighbor was on his porch and called him over to the fence. The officer inquired as to his reasons for coming onto my property and cutting our trees down. The neighbor gave several reasons: it was a fire hazard (yet he left the dead brush piled against the fence), they were his trees, he did not like them and finally that his mother had told him to cut them down (she actually owns the house, he just lives with her). Now, before I proceed any further with this, I am going to have the land surveyed and the fence line marked. If this proves the trees are on my property, then I believe I will have to go to court as he is refusing to pay anything. I have an estimate of $1000-1200 to have all the stumps ground, the brush cleared away on my side and a new hedgerow planted. My question is this: in addition to the above costs, can I also sue for any legal advice I get outside of small claims court, time off from work, mileage to come to court (as I stated, we live 120 miles away), the cost of the survey and the decrease in value of the home as we are just a couple of weeks away from putting it on the market, and the destroyed fence line looks hideous? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Do you know for certain just who's fence and bushes the property is actually on? If you do go to the expense of having the property surveyed and find that the fence and the bushes were not yours, then you can do nothing to the neighbor. If you do find that the fence and the bushes were on your property, then you can sue the neighbor for the damages. I am not sure you can add the survey or the money spent coming and going to the property, but you can always give it a try and see if you can't be reimbursed for this cost as well as removing the stumps and planting new plants.

Thank you for your answer, Twinkiedooter. I guess I should have been more clear in the wording of my question. If the survey shows that the trees and fence are on his property, then this is all moot. I will apologize to my neighbor, thank everyone for their advice and build a privacy fence on my side and he can deal with the stumps as he sees fit. If the stumps are on MY side, then what I should have asked is what elements can be seen as damages resulting from his actions. Is it only the actual value of the trees and shrubs, or can he be held responsible for the labor to replace the plants and the other ancillary items mentioned in my first post. Thank you.

You can include any costs you incur to gain redress for your loss. The worst that can happen is the judge will throw them out.

If he has taken this action, illegally, he would be responsible to put things back as they were prior to his damaging them, or at least as close as is physically possible.

I don't think you could force him to put in a full grown oak tree if you know what I mean, but yes, the labor, and ancillary items should be part of the amount you seek to recover.

yes, you can get prices from several garden centers for the value of trees that size, and they are liable for the value of the full grown trees.
Your legal costs, most likely I wuld include the cost of the survey and any costs involved.

The only thing I'm not sure of is the travel costs. It's not his problem that you live 120 miles away, and you shouldn't get more for that than you would if you were living in the house next door, since your damages are the same. And you never get to be paid for the time you take off from work to go to court, at least according to the TV court shows.

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Originally Posted by progunr

If he has taken this action, illegally, he would be responsible to put things back as they were prior to his damaging them, or at least as close as is physically possible.

I don't think you could force him to put in a full grown oak tree if you know what I mean, but yes, the labor, and ancillary items should be part of the amount you seek to recover.

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I think there will also be a question whether he honestly believed they were his trees - did he know they were on your property? If he thought they were "his" (or his mother's), why did he think that? Were they a hazard? A Judge will have to decide whether he acted prudently.

Depending on where you are and how liberal the Judge is I see no way he'll be ordered to grown trees with grown trees. Maybe a dollar amount but you would need an arborist to give a statement concerning the value of the trees, the de-evaluation of your property. And, yes, sue for all damages and see how it's decided.

Thank you all for your advice. I have spoken with an attorney, as a client, and she stated just as all of you did. I can sue for the stump removal, the value of the trees (as evidenced by an estimate from an arborist), the cost of the survey and her legal fees plus court costs. She also stated that I could get my realtor to give a statement as to any loss in market value due to the privacy loss. It would be up to the judge as to what is awarded, but she stated these were not unusual claims. She also stated that in Alabama, there is a presumed use statute that states if a fence line is used by both parties as a boundary for 20 or more years, then the fence is presumed to be the boundary for both parties. Unfortunately, my wife has only owned this property for 18 1/2 years. Thank you again for all of your helpful advice.

How much longer do you plan to own the property?

My neighbor and I don't get along due to family history beginning in the 1940s and he doesn't even really know me. Consider the possible future ramifications before deciding to sue for a few low value trees given your distance. You may arrive one weekend to a damaged house that happened while the neighbors were on "vacation".

It is not how long one person owned it, if the fense has been in place by the old owner, the length of time the fense was in place, not the person owning it the time would run back even to a previous owner to show years fense in place. In fact If I bouht that property today, tomorrow I could use the entire time the fense was there.

** also good catch on the loss of value of the home

I know in many states if it is legally acceptable to trim back any branches of a neighbors tree to the property line as long as it will not harm the tree. However they did go far beyond that. I know I for one would take action against any neighbor that cut the trees on my property. Luckily I have never been in that situation.

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Originally Posted by Fr_Chuck

yes, you can get prices from several garden centers for the value of trees that size, and they are liable for the value of the full grown trees.
Your legal costs, most likely I wuld include the cost of the survey and any costs involved.

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Varies from Court to Court but in my area you MUST have estimates from a licensed arborist - this obviously becomes a problem if the tree is downed and removed before you call the Arborist! The Arborist testifies to the health of the tree, the value based on the "species" and size, all of that good stuff.

And it keeps Arborists employed.

Hello:

Just to fill in the final blank, you cannot recover the cost of attending court such as mileage and time off work.

Will you win the decrease in the value of your home?? Not in addition to what the others said you'll win, because what you WILL win is supposed to put you back to where you were.

excon

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Originally Posted by JudyKayTee

Varies from Court to Court but in my area you MUST have estimates from a licensed arborist - this obviously becomes a problem if the tree is downed and removed before you call the Arborist! The Arborist testifies to the health of the tree, the value based on the "species" and size, all of that good stuff.

And it keeps Arborists employed.

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And it could actually work against the homeowner who is filing the complaint, if the trees are considered "trash" trees. I've seen cities outlaw certain trees (silver maples, hackberry, chinaberry, mimosa, etc) because they grow quickly, but weakly, so they drop a lot of twigs/limbs/seeds and the people of the city don't want to have to deal with it. So, if you had one of those and the neighbor cut it down, you might be out of luck on claiming it had any value at all.