Legal Question in Real Estate Law in North Carolina

It depends. If the neighbor was negligent in his maintenence of the tree then he is liable. It is most likely that the tree was planted before either party moved in as trees grow at slow rate...but this is only an assumption. Under my assumption, to make the neighbor liable, he would have had to know the tree roots would damage the driveway and/or it was foreseeale that this would happen.