hazard tree assessment

corey

i was asked to write a letter to my clients neighbor to warn her that if her tree failed, she would be held liable. here in pennsylvania, if your tree fails, and crushes your neighbors house, it is now their problem once it crosses the property line, unless it has been assigned a hazard tree thru a certified letter. any suggestions?

corey j. culley
isa certified arborist
pd-2076a

redmower

Corey

I would be inclined to firstly knock on the neighbor's door and ask consent to inspect the tree. Make a note later of your conversation for your own record, just in case.... Hopefully you'll get a better look up close.

(Myself I'd tell the neighbor what i see, that they can see too. Without spooking them in any way, but only if they asked what i discovered).

I would present the client with 2 copies of the arborist report on the tree. The client can give one of the signed copies to the neighbor. This seems to be a reasonable practice in Australia. Courts here have accepted that can be seen as evidence the neighbor (owning the tree) should have known the tree is potentially hazardous thus resulting in the neighbor being responsible for the impact the tree does on the neighbor land.

Hopefully today our great state parliament has passed a new law bringing this very issue out to a 'clear' process administratively. Neighbor Dispute Resolution Act. This may generate interesting reading over the coming year or two.

I will never give anything in writing to a third party i.e. the neighbor.

Red

corey

with sending the certified letter, they have to sign for the letter, and i get a reciept from the post office proving they recieved it.

the tree is a blue spruce, about 50' tall, and only has about 5% foliage remaining. it has a decent lean right towards the clients house, causing his concern. my client has already approached her, tried to do this process in a freindly manner. he even offered to pay for it. the tree owner already knows this letter is coming.

i plan on just typing up the bid, stating what is wrong with the tree, and the concerns, and including a copy of the ISA hazard tree assessment form.

Eric Frei

The clients lawyer or the client should be writing and sending letters not you.

You should be writing a report about the tree's condition, omitting anything that is not a fact or listing the areas for further investigation.

"fungal pathogens often colonise the root crown and potentially destabilise the tree however I was unable to make a closer inspection to determine such."

I have worked for clients who have received half cocked letters and shoddy arborist reports and shot them to bits, full of assumptions and arborphobia. The more guesses and assumptions they make the easier to shoot them to bits. Just stick to the facts and the likely outcome from your experience.

"In my experience the species, with 95% of the foliage dead, never recover and within a short period of time fail in part or whole. Considering the lean and the fact that a basal failure would result in the tree falling onto Smith's house it would be prudent to remove the tree now rather than later. Should the tree be retained for habit then adequate mitigation to be deployed to prevent the tree falling onto Smith's property. Mitigation could include propping, cabling and pruning."

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