Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Tree Falls over Property Line - who owns wood?

You are guilty of trespass and nuisance. You are responsible for paying your neighbors the cost of removal of any part of the tree they do not remove themselves from their property. You cannot remove any wood from their property without their permission.

Re: Tree Falls over Property Line - who owns wood?

If the trunk of the tree, while growing, was entirely on your side of the boundary line, it is your tree and remains yours when it falls onto your neighbor's land.

When the tree falls, you become a trespasser, and you are also liable to the neighbor for all consequences of the trespass (broken fences, etc.). Whether you were also negligent or committed a private nuisance depends upon additional facts, not given.

Further, an owner of property may sometimes enter his neighbor's land to retrieve that property when it is carried there by flood, windstorm, etc. without the entry being a trespass. Suc entry seems to be permissible when the property owner is not at fault. It is less certain that you could enter the neighbor's property to remove the tree if you were partly or completely at fault because, for example, you neglected to maintain the tree.

So, in sum, you own the tree and you may be liable to the neighbor for the consequences of its fall.