Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Neighbor and Trees

I would not give her permission to trespass onto your property to then claim she injured herself.

Re: Neighbor and Trees

First, it looks as though the neighbor's biggest issue is danger of falling limbs or toppling trees (safety issues) rather than neatness and debris issues, blocked sunlight, or invasive roots.

If so, for your own protection I'd recommend that you hire an arborist to inspect the trees and give you recommendations in writing; then do whatever your arborist recommends and you will have a big leg up against any claim in the future that you were negligent.

The law on overhanging limbs can be summarized as follows:

(1) They are trespassory;

(2) The offended neighbor has the right to self-help; i.e., she can have the limbs trimmed without a court order. However, she is not entitled to dispose of the limbs by trespassing on your property, nor is she allowed to rebill you for the cost.

(3) The neighbor may also allege that the trees are a private nuisance as well as trespassing, but the facts do not appear to support such a claim. Private nuisance requires that they constitute an unreasonable interference with her right to quiet enjoyment of her property. She also "came to the nuisance" by buying property where the existence of the trees was plainly evident before she decided to buy. This does not help her case for nuisance.

(4) Judges hate to deal with neighbor tree cases because the law is in some respects rather vague, and because they feel that neighbors should work out stuff like this between themselves and not burden the courts with it. So, I guess they are not very sympatehtic to people like your neighbor.

(5) If your neighbor has hurt herself in the course of self-help remediation of a trespass, I think she has no case against you; you didn't ask her to do it, nor did you supervise or direct the manner in which the work was done.

Get the arborist opinion first. Then see a lawyer.