Next door neighbour pushing my fence panel over

Seems two issues here. First of all agree with other poster a few fence panels will not stop cats jumping it. Secondly, whose land is the tree in? If it is in yours then you don't have an absolute obligation to chop the neighbours side down as they could do that themselves (and throw back the branches to your side) But IF it is on your side and you don't want to upset neighbours, it seems sensible to have the whole lot chopped (to stop any arguments)

I don't know why everyone is assuming you are in a housing association property? I am speaking if it is privately owned. IF it IS a housing association then yes get in touch with them and ask them to remove the tree.

After 34 years living neighbourly ...is it really worth all the aggro?

Sorry missed the bit about it being housing association ....
Ask for advice

I have a lot of trees which belong to me at the borders of my garden . If I want to cut them down completely I may do so. If I want to keep the trees my neighbours are within their rights to chop off any branches that overhang their property.

You are allowed to prop up fence panels in your own garden and neighbour who knocks them down is doing criminal damage.

Your neighbour does sound a little delally and the best way to deal with him or her is to humour them as much as you can. Say that you will chop the branches, and put up a nicer fence or whatever improves their mood.

Flexible the side branches were cut at her side at the top of course, as the height was taken off,its just the lower branches,which i also have at my side,their light is not still being cut out, and i didnt know that this is how it worked when trees in someones garden were cut down, to cut all the lower branches off on their side he would have had to go into their garden, her side looks no different to mine at the lower end
I did aplologise that he hadnt gone all the way round, but my side is the same,i am not apologising again, i could barely afford to pay what i did, so want going to fork out another £50 for their side
I have a small tree from their side that is hanging over my fence,i wouldnt go round and ask them to come and cut it ,i do it

+ould complain about thatden then they wI did approach the Housing association about the tree,they said they didnt do it anymore but put me in touch with a contractor for them, he wanted £400, so had to find someone myself, the young man who did do it works for them and did it as a favour, he said i was within my rights to only have my side cut down as that was legal, they have 2 sons who could cut their side down
I have no idea why they are being so nasty, and it WAS said nastily, about the fence panels.it doesnt spoil any views etc, in fact that part of their garden is just weeds, he was a very keen gardener ,but cant keep with it now i think, ook the panels away could get through their wire fencing into their gar
My cats do not jump on the fences ever,but if i took the panes down they could walk into their garden, which they wouldnt like either
Also i dont trust them not to poison them, my Siamese came in once with a blistered tongue after being in their garden, and died not long after, my vet said he had licked something caustic and before anyone says i am being paranoid or something, when i first moved here the gardens were not enclosed like now, and my cat at that time was chased by another cat and was run over,my neighbour said she saw which cat chased it and suggested i put poison down for it,i was horrified so another reason i dont want my cats in there

Sorry post seems to have got a bit muddled,should start i i did complain

That looks like a Lelandii or similar Blonde, in which case if you had had their side cut back to your fence line it may well have cut all the green off and these type of trees don’t regenerate easily. If ever. They’d not have like to look at a a dead looking tree would they?

Your housing association should be able to help and may even fix the fence for you.

Nfk do you mean the tree at the bottom of the garden or the one at the side which was cut back, neither are leylandiis, the one at the bottom of the garden is a canadian pine, and cant remember what the cut one is, but it grows very bushy, HA wont help , bu, very rarely see them, with hedges and fences so high, same at the other side, leave things as they are,if he pushes it down again i will just push it back until i can find another solution
I think they like to get their own way, but not this time
I very rarely see them at all, especially in winter,the gardens are very closed off,with high hedges etc

I agree with others that Housing Assoc., should be informed and good for you taking photos to prove what you've done to help the neighbours.

I also think this unusually hostile behaviour could be linked to illness.

The law is a strange thing. In my part of the world, if your tree branches overhang someone else's property, you must ask their permission (and preferably get it in writing against any disputes) to cut back branches on their side.

If you want to take down a whole tree, you must ask Council permission in case there's a preservation order on it - this applies to ALL native trees.
People who take down a tree without permission are in for a hefty fine.

blondenana
The man who pruned your tree, being a Council bod, should have told you about the law governing this. If you're worried, ring the Council and find out.

You may feel uncomfortable about doing this after all the unpleasantness but if this were me, I'd risk taking some home baking round and trying to smooth things over with a soft word or two.
If I got shouted at, at last I'd know I'd done all I could.

Our large flowering cherry tree has just finished flowering and was getting huge. So we have just had it trimmed back. It is up against the fence line and hangs over into our neighbour’s garden.

Before doing anything we consulted with them and as a result we were told that the tree surgeon was welcome to come onto their side, into their garden, to complete the work. Job done, everyone happy.

Good relations with your neighbours are so important. Why don’t you take up BL72’s suggestion and go round bearing a gift and sort it all out?

I meant the one which was cut back. Most pines and firs take an age to regenerate if cut back into the brown wood. If ever. Scots pines I know from experience, don’t grow back.

Who should and should not do whatever has nothing to do with a person, your neighbour, behaving like a nasty moron. There are plenty of white van men on facebook who do gardening odd jobs for a few quid.. find one who is well known and trustworthy and ask him a quote to firmly bolster up your panels. I dont believe in that old British way of being nice to nasty people. Just do the panles and ignore them and do nothing for them.

Thanks again everyone for your input, i dont need permission from the council as i planted the tree, believe it or not when i moved here, but as i said earlier i did consult the neighbours, and they asked me not to cut it to the ground, i assumed it would be cut all round, so was a bit shocked when i got the nasty phone call,didn;t realise it wasnt,and i just cant afford to pay anymore, as i said earlier i just have my pension, and if i had known what trouble it would cause i would not have bothered having it cut down at all, the only problem i personally had with it was it was growing outwards across my window cutting out some light, not from the top,
Anyhow thanks Johno i will take your advice, [re ignoring them],cant be doing with falling out with neighbours,rarely see them anyway ,
The panels are staying where they are,they don;t cause a problem, like banging in the wind etc, and basically out of sight

People get very territorial about gardens and fences. When I bought this house 20 years ago half the fence was missing in the back garden and had been replaced with metal garage doors. I had a dog and obviously couldn't live like that. So arranged to have a new fence put in before I moved in. Told next door what was happening and she was fine with that. Great, well no as soon as the new fence was about to go up she demanded the existing fence a saggy wire fence with concrete posts be left in situ. never mind that marked the boundary she was adamant it had to stay. So I asked the fencers to install the fence my side of the boundary. My fence isn't straight because in places it's on the boundary, between the two houses and then it moves to my side of the boundary, it looks like the fencer has been on the beer but hey anything to keep the neighbours happy. The fencer did a great job and then she complained about the height of the fence, when asked what the problem was, she wanted it to be 3 foot not 6 foot because she wanted to be able to see into my garden. I didn't want to fall out but I'd had enough and I like my privacy and said well that would be daft my dog could jump over a 3 foot fence and luckily she was fine about it but continued to grumble for years later that couldn't I put a trellis panel in rather than a solid one. I think she felt safe with us next door and was forever asking me to do things for her because her Son cancelled things like her home emergency insurance but when her drains were blocked he'd be really slow about getting someone to sort it where as before the home emergency would turn up within hours. It would end up with me sorting her drain because I was quicker. Her Son who didn't live there was taking over everything and removing her independence bit by bit and then sadly she had a fall and he really took over and we never saw her again. The house was sold off to developers and 2 years of aggravation was endured. My fence is still a bit wonky but the developers removed the saggy boundary fence and now my fence is treated as the boundary, luckily we get on well with the new neighbours I just hope there's no arguments about the boundary in the future.

We have problems with trees in our neighbours garden, they have never been cut in the 14 years we have lived here. The bushes and overgrowth have caused our fence panels to lean and just paid £600 to have them replaced. The foxes that live in their wilderness will be back to digging under or climbing over the panels. We have the overhanging branches cut off every few years at our expense. His house is private I wish he’d move out and someone who likes gardening to move in. I don’t know who to complain too. Any seedlings quickly grow into new trees, often the dreaded sycamore. You have my sympathies

I sympathise with anyone living next door to difficult neighbours with large trees as my garden is badly affected by three huge conifers which belong to the house at the back. It has been rented for many years and the man who owns is says he is emotionally attached to the trees so will not cut them down. The house used to belong to his mother who planted them over 50 years ago. I did once approach him to ask if the height could be reduced as one of them is leaning towards my house and it looked rather unsafe. Initially he refused but then he came to look at it from my garden and agreed to reduce the height.

I was disappointed by the small reduction, I had hoped for a more drastic measure but after I paid to have some huge branches on my side cut down, it looked a lot better.

Mind you, I found out afterwards that the only reason that he had the work done was because he was struggling to find tenants for his house as their garden was even more affected by the trees!

I always do my best to get on with my neighbours and have enjoyed living in all my houses so I have been lucky not to have noisy or messy neighbours.

Is there a possibility your neighbour is suffering from dementia? It would account for her change in behaviour. As a nurse I have seen this before in elderly and not so elderly people. Has she got family who you could speak to? You could ask if everything is ok.

I like my present neighbours. They take no interest in the garden possibly as their house is rented not owned by them.All adults, they have no kids with the dread trampolines.
They have never complained to me about my trees which hang over their garden. They'd have slight reason to complain as the gardens are big ones and my trees include a fine crabapple, a pink cherry, and a towering eucalyptus with clematis montana threaded through almost to the top of it.

The original boundary is marked by a very overgrown privet hedge, and as I have a 6' panel fence on my side of the boundary the big hedge makes a great retreat for foxes, cats, and hedgehogs which I imagine enjoy my neighbours' long grass in the night times.

Can't understand about only being responsible for your side of the tree. I have always understood that if any vegetation grows onto/into an other property you are responsible for any issues eg. too tall, overhanging branches. The other party is entitled to cut anything encroaching onto their property but must place it back on to owners property. If anything is blocking light that is a different issue and full agreement to cut down must be sought and obtained. Your tree was supposedly blocking light therefore your responsibilit. As to the fence the landlord may have to give consent for anything permanent eg fixing in with concrete posts. Neighbours!!!

I think you are legally not responsible for neighbour's side of tree. Otherwise neighbours would always be having to cut both sides of hedges -their's and the neighbour's , which is not (never) the case.

I would just move the fence panels so they can't knock it down. Cats can get anywhere. Woman next door has a hissy fit when she sees mine and my cat just slinks off. A small price to pay just removing the fence panels for a bit of peace and it makes you the bigger person and them the smaller. As you said the cats don't move from yours anyway and if they do they can take a bit of being shouted at. They are the faster of the two. Agree with comment that grumpy behaviour does not mean dementia!!!! Just narky humans.

More than a third of elderly people get dementia and as there are 2 elderly neighbours it could well be that one or both of them has dementia.
When my husband was alive, suffering from Alzheimers, he could not stand people he did not know parking in our shared drive. I told him not to take any notice as there was plenty of space, but it used to drive him up the wall.

Did you plant the tree or was in there when you moved in?
I live in HA property and although our garden is very small there was a couple of trees at the top which were very high and from the day I moved in the lady in the house at the back of mine started complaining about the trees and how I had to get rid of them. I rang the HA and they said unless there was something wrong with them then they stay as it was them that owed them.
15 years down the line and in high winds large pieces of the tree would come off so again I rang the HA and a tree surgeon came and looked and said one had partly died and would send someone to remove it, unfortunately while I was out they removed the wrong tree so said somebody would come another day, that time they cut down a neighbours cherry blossom tree, third time they got it right but because HA owned it they paid.
Sorry rambling on, spend too much time on my own lol

Why not try to talk to them to see why they are so upset? They may be becoming confused and this often makes people aggressive and defensive; perhaps you could try as an opening gambit asking if they are unwell as they seem unhappy. It might not work, and if you are met with further nastiness then I would retreat rapidly and ask the housing association what can be done about the trees and the fence - if it is not your house then why are you paying for work to be done on land that isn't yours?

And just as aside.
If you decide to get any more work done then get some quotes. I'm not saying you didn't pay the proper rate, but £200 for what seems like lart kf a job and then asking another £50 to actually finish it does not seem like "a favour" to me!!