On Wed, 10 May 2006 19:43:40 GMT, Weebie wrote:


Did you offer to pay for the third on your side? Tree
trimming is expensive!

I never had the opportunity.

A huge tree is touching my property line but the trunk is on
my side (just barely). Half of it shades my entire front
yard, half of it shades my neighbor's entire front yard.
I.e. we benefit equally from that tree, and we could argue
about whether it's "my tree" or "our tree."

I am very fortunate to have several old growth live oaks which have
been tagged and registered in Williamson Cty. It's a ten thousand
dollar fine to cut them down.

I paid hundreds of dollars to trim my side so I don't get
dead branches falling on my lawn. If he wants to pay the
hundreds more to trim his side too, great, lets just have
the whole tree trimmed and split the cost. But why should I
pay the cost of trimming the part of the tree he alone
benefits from? He is the one in control of that side of the
tree, anyway: a trimmer would have to go on his property,
not mine, to do the work.

If the entire trunk is on your side of the property inside a fence it
is you who I believe should pay for it.

But maybe he doesn't value that tree or it's shade, in which
case he won't care what I do or don't do to it.

He cares. When we had our homes appraised by a realtor, the trees
alone on my property are worth over fifty thousands to the value of
the house, not counting the tree in his yard.

(This particular tree won't last another ten years anyway,
according to the tree man, which only reinforces the "why
would I spend hundreds of dollars of maintenance that
doesn't affect me?")

Why won't it last another ten years?