Trees, drains and the liabilities you share with neighbours

Treat the sections below as a sequence. With shared property liabilities, getting the early decisions right makes the later ones much easier.

Drainage is often shared

Pipes serving more than one property are commonly the responsibility of a water authority or of the owners jointly, depending on the jurisdiction and where the pipe runs. The section within your boundary serving only your property is usually yours, and the shared section may not be.

A blockage in a shared run affects several homes, and establishing responsibility before the emergency is far easier. Your conveyancer establishes this from the drainage search, and the answer is worth remembering after completion.

Trees have three separate issues

Ownership is determined by where the trunk stands, regardless of where the branches or roots extend. Protection may apply through preservation orders or conservation area rules, and breaching them carries substantial penalties in many jurisdictions. Liability arises where a tree causes damage, and roots drawing moisture from clay soil is a well-established mechanism for subsidence.

The useful part is this: a neighbour tree causing damage to your building is generally a matter for their insurer, and the claim requires evidence linking the tree to the movement.

Overhanging branches and roots

Many systems allow you to cut back growth that crosses the boundary, up to the boundary line and no further. The cuttings usually remain the property of the tree owner, and disposing of them by throwing them over the fence is not a good approach. Cutting back can destabilise or kill a tree, which creates liability, and it may breach protection rules.

Where it helps most, where the tree is large or protected, take advice before cutting anything.

Party structures

Walls shared between two properties, and works affecting them, are regulated in some jurisdictions by specific procedures requiring notice to the neighbour. Excavating near a neighbour foundation, cutting into a shared wall or building up to a boundary commonly triggers such requirements. Failing to follow the procedure where it applies can lead to injunctions and to liability for damage that would otherwise have been shared.

Where no such statute exists, the general law of nuisance and negligence still applies.

Boundaries, hedges and light

High hedge legislation exists in some jurisdictions, providing a complaint route where an evergreen hedge blocks light. Rights to light can be acquired over long periods in some systems, restricting what a neighbour may build. These are all fact-specific and locally variable, which is why general advice is unreliable here.

A conveyancer or a local surveyor is the right source before a dispute forms.

Some of this will suit you and some will not, and that is the point.

Keeping it out of court

Neighbour disputes must usually be disclosed when selling, and they reduce saleability for both properties. Early conversation, a written record of what was agreed and a willingness to share a cost resolves most of these far more cheaply than any formal route. Mediation exists and is much cheaper than litigation, and courts in many places expect it to have been attempted.

Put simply, this is general information; a solicitor should advise on any specific dispute.

The takeaway

Find out which drains, walls and trees are shared before anything goes wrong with them.

Pick the one that costs you least, and let the rest wait.