Hedge responsibility

[Broadback]

I own both the side hedges between myself and my neighbours. I used to cut them every 6 months or so, but sadly old father time has come to visit so now I employ a gardener, to cut them annually. I only see to the tops and my side. The neighbour on one side just trims hers lightly, as a result the hedge had thicken considerably on her side. t To the extent that the gardener can not reach right across. she is a very prickly person, and suffers from the gardening equivalent of "house pride". This time of year she is outside constantly vacumming up the leaves as they fall! Anyway is it reasonable for her to reduce the hedge width on her side?

[Martin Brown]

Only if she chooses to, but you cannot force her to. Equally she might be prepared to pay your gardener to cut it for her - have you asked?

[Chris Hogg]

In your neighbour's position I would think it entirely reasonable for her to reduce the width on her side, should she so wish. OTOH if she's happy with the current situation, then that's her business. I don't see you can make her cut it more than she wants to.

AIUI the legal position is that you can trim any branches of trees, shrubs or hedging that overhang your property from your neighbour's side, back to the boundary line, provided that you return the cuttings to said neighbour. So your neighbour could if she wishes, cut the hedge back to the boundary line and chuck all the prunings into your garden.

What's the hedge made of? Some hedge plants, especially conifers like Leylandii, won't take hard pruning or cutting back, as they refuse to re-shoot and green up the cut areas, and you're left with an unsightly brown scar. If that were to happen on your neighbour's side, I think she would be more than a little annoyed. For example, you or your gardener could force your way into the hedge from your side, and working your way along the hedge, take it back to the boundary line without setting foot on your neighbour's property. But the result, from your neighbour's POV would be awful.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Conversely you could trim the hedge back on her side to the boundary line and leave the clippings all over her garden.

Yerrs, the law is an Ass

[NY]

We have the opposite problem: we own the hedges on one side of our garden but our neighbour keeps cutting them (on top) with his rotary hedge cutter (it looks like a handheld rotary mower with a huge hose that sends the cuttings to a bag) and he shaves it so short that it looks bald; he also cuts it too low (lack of privacy for us) and leaves it all wavy instead of making sure it's got a flat top.

We keep asking him not to, and each time he pretends that this is the first he knew of it and blames us for leaving the hedge too long. I suspect "council house envy" because his house is owned by a housing association whereas ours is owned by us (the tenant in the 1980s bought it under Maggie's right to buy scheme and it's been sold on since then, whereas our neighbour wasn't in a financial position to take advantage of the scheme and resents all the house owners round about). The housing association keep going out to see him to explain that it's our hedge so he's only allowed to cut his side of it and not the top (because the boundary line runs along his side of the hedge, not down the middle of the hedge), but they are fairly toothless and don't seem to have any sanctions to apply if he persistently ignores the rules.

I caught him doing it when he thought I'd gone out and even when confronted with a photo as proof, he denied it and invented all sorts of excuses.

[michael adams]

That's easily sorted. A few straightened out wire coathangers inserted near the top of the hedge on your side only should soon discourage him. Some nonsense about protecting birds nests or similar might provide a reasonable explanation. Not that this should be necessary in the first place.

michael adams

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>

[Chris Hogg]

Put a layer of galvanised or green-PVC-coated wire netting flat onto the top of the hedge. You can get it 50cm wide, something like this

The hedge will grow up through it, and it will make cutting through it, well, difficult at least and probably quite noisy, especially if you run some heavy-duty wires through it, lengthwise along the hedge. Or drive some long steel stakes down through the hedge into the earth below, height to suit your own requirements, something like these or just use angle-iron.

[JoeJoe]

I think that there is an exception with regards to trees? Something along the lines of: even if it encroaches on your land you cannot trim it to the point where the tree will look "butchered".

I will be happy to be corrected, as I would love to do just that (i.e. butcher) the 4 trees that overhang our back garden from land owned by the council (which have never been tended to since we moved here 10 years ago).

[Huge]

[38 lines snipped]

You are perfectly within your rights to chop off the bits that intrude into your garden. You have to return them, though, they don't belong to you.

[ARW]

You have to offer to return them. That offer may be declined and then the bits become your property.

If the offer to accept them is not accepted then you just throw them into the neighbours garden when it is dark:-)

[bert]

That's my understanding too.

[fred]

DONT fall out with the neighbours. It will make your life hell. Where I grew up we had old spinsters either side and they were a nightmare. Dare not cut a hedge or solicitors letters started flying. One of them had an apple tree the branches of which over shot the hedge with the result that her apples might have fallen into our garden. Before she would let that happen she cut down the apple tree. The laugh was we had 4 apple trees of our own anyway.

[Tricky Dicky]

The rules regarding hedges and boundaries are confusing. A hedge alongside a public highway/footpath is the owners responsibility to trim back, most c ouncils do not usually enforce that unless a complaint is received. They ca n then issue a notice to trim the hedge with a threat of prosecution if not acted on, or they will cut back the hedge themselves and charge the owner the cost. The LA we lived in at our last house did the latter with a nuisan ce hedge across the road from us, they actually cut the hedge down just abo ve the roots and dumped the remains on the guy's front lawn. Many developme nts specify through covenants that front gardens should be open plan and ha ve no boundary walls or limited height walls whereas if you grow a hedge yo u can have it any height you want. Hedges between neighbours are different in that if your neighbour allows your hedge to encroach on their side of th e boundary despite it being your hedge you cannot trim anything beyond the boundary line as that will become trespass. It's like kicking a football in to your neighbours garden you are not entitled to go in and retrieve it you rself but likewise your neighbour is not entitled to withhold it from you a s that would be considered as theft. In many cases covenants in the deeds w ill specify what can be done regards boundaries, one wall of our link-detac hed bungalow is the boundary with my neighbour but I have right to enter hi s property to maintain that wall. At the end of the day most neighbours sol ve a lot of these boundary issues quite amicably it's only when you get som e prat next door that there are issues.

Richard

[tim.....]

Um, no he couldn't

No the law is very clear, you have misunderstood it

tim

[rick]

If the hedge is thickening so much as to encroach on her land she could conceivably employ someone to cut it back and expect you to pick up the costs - if as you say its your hedge.