Legal Question in Insurance Law in North Carolina

Re: Neighbors don't like my tree!

To answer your question, they probably can't make you remove the tree. The more pressing question is whether they could successfully sue you if the tree (or limbs) fell on their property (or on them!). The answer to that is probably "yes." The law regarding falling trees is, generally, that a landowner is liable for a tree on his property that injures another person or other property only if that property owner knew or should have known of the hazard. Usually this means that the owner is not liable unless it actually saw a bad, dead, rotting etc. tree. The strongest case against the land-owner is where a neighbor actually complains. So, your neighbor is doing exactly what he/she should do to make their case, in the event they are ever damaged. There would still be a factual question as to your alleged negligence, especially if you can call an arborist as a witness to say that the tree looked fine, but there would be some real risk where your neighbor has expressly complained to you.