Next door neighbour pushing my fence panel over

Its not worth all the hassle please try to resolve and keep the peace as your neighbours are getting old and not in excellent health.please try to do the right thing by them.

Blondenana I think you've been very accommodating to them. You've followed their wishes as asked, if they're not happy with what you've done speak to your housing officer. Every HA has one. They may be developing dementia and a good HO will spot that, you've done all you can and should do.Don't be bullied into further action just contact the HO. Good Luck

Sounds like the housing association might be the best people to mediate. It's very difficult when you're on your own and the neighbour is a couple - you're outnumbered before you start! (they can be very cruel sometimes when they could be so helpful? Anyway, such a shame they've decided to make life difficult for you. I hope you can resolve it soon if you got along so well in the past? Such a shame when neighbours make your life miserable. Hugs.

I agree totally . If it's your tree , you are responsible. However , the tree surgeon should have clearly explained to you his legal position . I'm sure that your neighbour wouldn't have minded them coming onto their property to tackle the tree . I can understand your neighbours frustration , cats, fence , tree. Good relations with neighbours are really important . You appear to feel wronged . Be the bigger person . Talk to your neighbour , pay , sort tree and fences. Being thoughtful is important . Hope you resolve it .

I have similar with my neighbours. Started out well but changed over dispute re a hedge. Nasty pasties as it turned out. The other side isn't much better. Man who lives there is violent ( burst into another neighbours house and threatened their 17 year old daughter). He has been vile to me when I told him to stop blocking my drive.Am sandwiched between nastiness. Housing association property but now partly owned by me. ( Shared ownership)

In the case of the violent neighbour, once he had seen that I am not entirely alone, his attitude changed. He caught sight of my 6' 5" son in law recently. Different story.

Do these people bully you because you seem vulnerable ? Involve the police if necessary. Don't let the b*******s grind you down.

the tree is your responsibility, if the neighbours cut down branches encroaching on to their property by law they have to give them back to you. i.e. throw them over your fence. maybe the fence panels propped up look an eyesore? from their side. go round visit them and discuss with them ... try not to be unhappy x

Chucky it's their responsibility to have branches on their side cut. They are allowed to chuck said branches back over fence. With their animosity I wouldn't have entertainted cutting g their side down

The RHS website provides clear guidance on overhanging trees.

The tree belongs to the person on whose property it grows and overhangs may be cut off by neighbours although the branches and leaves cut off must be offered to the owners before being disposed of. Fruit belongs to the tree owner and may not be taken.

In trimming an overhanging tree, the tree itself and its roots are not to be damaged.

It seems clear that the OP is in the right here and not the grumpy neighbours. The neighbours can cut the overhang on their side but she doesn't have to.

However, I am of the opinion that the 80 year old neighbours might be suffering from Alzheimer's or be affected by the querulousness and fears which beset older and frailer folks.

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!!

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.