Good to know that I don't have to count on my deadbeat neighbors to have insurance if anything happens to *my* house!

Also, in some locales (like Philly) the municipality has responsibility for "street trees" -- if one of those comes down, the municipality will remove it. Don't know how that works with insurance (and hope I don't have to find out)....

I do have to say I'd be mighty annoyed if the tree that fell in my neighborhood had hit my house. It was obvious that the owner had let the tree get weakened by letting English ivy grow up it for years.

Excellent!

Yeah, that is completely the opposite of everything I've ever heard. Maybe I've just been misinformed, but... ???

What about either
my tree + neighbor yard + doesn't hit anything or
neighbor tree + My yard + doesn't hit anything?

This post is absolutely correct, the house that's hit is whose insurance pays. One scenario was left out though, neighbors tree falls into your yard and doesn't hit a 'structure', you pay out of pocket to clean up their tree... or if they're really nice like my neighbor, they'll help out too.

No, it's correct. Basically, whatever falls on your property becomes your problem. (much like you having to rake leaves that fall into your yard from your neighbor's tree.) An exception MIGHT be if you can prove negligence -- i.e. neighbor has a dead tree, and there is documentation proving that you have tried to get them to deal with it. I had $68,000 worth of damage to my home after a neighbor's (healthy) tree fell during Hurricane Isabel. My insurance paid.

Tree laws, from what I understand, vary from state to state. Also, there may be specific laws affecting insurance coverage/liability in the case of neighbors who neglect their trees despite documented warnings that their trees need to be seen by an arborist.

We had two trees fall over the last 4 years. Paid out of pocket for both to be removed. Fortunately the damage was minimal both times - one hit the fence and back porch (easy for us to fix on our own) and one fell towards the house and hit exactly on the chimney top and balanced there with no damage to the house instead of coming through the living room!

If it's under a few thousand, I'd pay out of pocket so the insurance doesn't raise my rate or cancel us... technically insurance is supposed to be for catastrophic damage that you wouldn't be able to afford to pay.

The day after I bought a new car and had it parked in my driveway, my neighbor's 200 year old tree fell. It knocked the brick off the house on the other side. I had an 80 foot driveway, and the tree branches landed ONE INCH from my car. One inch. The guy whose tree fell, no damage to his house at all, but it did total his car. He repaired the neighbor's house, but I wondered what would have happened to me if my car had been totaled. When you drive it off the lot, it loses 33% of it's value, so would I have gotten the purchase price, or the one day old price.

This isn't a tree, but we had a 20 ton out of control landscape truck hit our house. We had two cars in the driveway, and a motor home, again with 16 miles on it, the drive home from the dealership. (The insurance company claimed it was a used motor home, but my husband eventually got the full purchase price out of them.)

The truck shoved one car into the basement, and out the other side; it shoved the motor home into the basement so the two stories about were sitting on the motor home, and the entire brick facade of all three stories fell onto the 300 zx. We made the front page, with picture, of the second section of the Atlanta Journal, where we were living at the time.

We were out of the house for 30 days. The insurance lady told my husband she didn't have to give us bus fare. When he was through with her, we were driving a Lincoln with suicide doors. We had parties in there it was so big. We had an option to buy the house, but passed. The kitchen cabinets had been knocked off center. The doors no longer closed. I think a strong wind could have blown that house down.

This was our scenario:

neighbor's tree + our yard + didn't hit a structure

We had to take care of the removal. Insurance paid for nothing and neither did the neighbor. Who knew.

I think stevedave44 is reading it this way: neighbor = brown residence

your tree + brown's yard: brown's neighbor's insurance pays
not
your tree + brown's yard: brown's insurance pays

Thanks for posting this, I was just thinking about the 60 ft maple in my city lot-sized back yard and if lightening were to strike, hoping it wouldn't hit my neighbor's house and how I would pay for it.

Our neighbor's tree fell on a shed we had just started building earlier this summer. Luckily it was very minimal damage (maybe $20 total) and he was out the next mowning cleaning it up. He even gave us the tree for firewood. It was our first real situation like it, and proved to us that we lucked out an got a nice neighbor.

At our last house, our neighbors white birch tree got glazed in an ice storm, and doubled over so the top branches reached out onto the cul-de-sac for a day or two. It didn't really block traffic, but the city came and cut down the tree and removed everything. Without talking to anyone. They came home from work and the tree was gone. Ours, a little thinner, just missed the road, doubled over the same way, and fully recovered when the temperature rose and the ice melted.

You know, it's nice to bring this to everyone's attention. However, the best authority on one's financial obligations for one's trees and house is one's insurance agent. Call the person who wrote the policy or the company who issued the policy and find out exactly what THEY say your obligations are.
Unless, of course, AT wants to indemnify us all for relying on this legal/financial advice to our detriment.

Sorry;"indemnify us against..."

The quick guide might be right in Philly. But state laws dictate who covers what damage. In MN it is reversed, as the property owner also owns the trees. But this can also depend on home insurance coverage, as rapunzel has stated.

Everyone this is entirely true. I'm a licensed P&C Agent for every state in the US and I've worked in the industry for years.

The only way you're responsible if YOUR tree lands on a neighbors house is if they can prove you did not take due diligence with a dead tree.

I.E. your tree dies years ago. They request you cut it down so it does not menace their house. They do not comply. You send legal notice. They do not comply. Tree falls on your house. Even then it might require legal action before they accept responsibility.

Otherwise, the homeowners house who is damaged by the falling tree makes a claim against their own insurance. This is true REGARDLESS of who's tree it is.

Hope this helps :)

Also, keep in mind, many insurance agencies will not raise your rates if you live in a wind damage prone location and it is related specifically to damage from a catastrophic wind loss (hurricanes, tornados, etc)

The article is correct pretty much everywhere that has tort law, since your neighbour's tree coming down does not necessarily equate to negligence on their part. It seems like it should, but sometimes trees just come down and no-one is at fault. It's for the best though, since most people buy replacement cost on their home insurance which covers the full cost to repair. A liable third party is only responsible for the depreciated value. Also, for insurance to respond, there has to be actual property damage, so if no damage to structures, then insurance will not respond.

So does this mean it's up to me to ask my neighbor to take care of their dead tree, otherwise they're not at fault? We had a dead tree that just came down on it's own (no damage to anything luckily) but our neighbor's house is the same age and they've got a tree just as dead as ours was.

This is very helpful to read.

My state is still mostly without power after Irene, and everyone is blaming National Grid. It is not National Grid's responsibility to cut down the trees along town and city roads, it is the municipality's. Folks are claiming that National Grid should have gone out in bucket trucks and cleared ALL the branches along the roads in the state to prevent lines from coming down.

Good post. I'm going to call our insurance agent, because we have lots of trees and a nasty next door neighbor.

In the six year's I've lived at my house, we've had three trees fall, one on our lot that took out part of our fence, and two originating from our neighbors yard. The first neighbor tree had been dead for a while and though we always worried about it, we never confronted our neighbor about it. That one came down and took out a good portion of our house. Our lack of recorded confrontation meant our insurance paid. Her second tree fell this summer and landed squarely on our truck. This time we paid the 1k out of pocket to have the thing removed, plus the $500 to get the truck up and running again. The lady has been very careful to never fully apologize or take blame in any form. The latest disaster is the most frustrating, because even if the tree hadn't hit anything on our property, she would have had to pay for its removal, as the truck was blocking most of her driveway.

Earlier this summer the next door neighbor's tree came down on the house on the other side. The owner of the now completely demolished rental house had his insurance company pay for repairs.

To add insult to injury his house was completely looted before he could get out there to board it up. Thieves came the first night and stole all the tenant's belongings. Then they came back the next night and took all the fixtures and copper plumbing and wiring.

So this happened in a house I was renting from a family member. Tree from the lot fell down before we moved in, family member refused to pay (happened during a storm). Legally was neighbor's problem. Neighbor became irate (part of fence was damaged) and kindly gave me the opportunity to pay for it myself (since my family member didn't want to). We didn't talk for the remainder of our year in the rental. Lived in Philly and while the trees belong to the city, from what I understood they were still our responsibility (a branch of our tree bent and dangled over neighbor's driveway, we had to call a tree trimmer). But the city came by every so often and butchered the trees for the power lines, so I think they preemptively chop down trees now to avoid a problem (they basically kill them anyway). It's awful, especially because a big city tree was part of our privacy. By the time we left it had one branch that sprouted leaves. Only a matter of time before it's gone.

This just happened to my mom. Except, the tree cut everyone's power out and the electric company came, chopped the neighbor's tree down and put all the clippings in my mom's yard. Thankfully she had a friend who helped get rid of it all, but she had to deal with the problem. The electric co tried to get the arborist to take the stuff away, but they wouldn't. It's really sucks. I think how it works is BS, I believe it's not your problem if your neighbor plants a crappy tree right on the property line and it damages your things. Takes up your time, money, and thought for something you never even decided to do in the beginning.

This is both good to know and very sad at the same time. This means even with evidence a damaged tree int he neighbors yard that threatens to fall onto our house will still be our problem despite all attempts to talk to them about the issue (they refuse to answer the door or respond to letters). I guess if you ever want to commit the perfect crime this would also be it, just take a big tree and aim it at a neighbor you hate. With no evidence to the contrary you can laugh it up for years. So not right.

This is some good information. I have another scenario that I hope I can get some help with. There is a slope between my backyard and my neighbors backyard. On his property, he has 2 tall cottonwood trees he'd like to remove. They aren't posing a safety hazard but cottonwood are messy trees, leaving white fluff floating in the air and all over everything. He wants to cut the trees down himself. The problem is that the trees will fall towards my property, my house, my kids cedar fort/swingset, and my large shed. He does not fell trees for a living. He would like my husband to help, and my husband has never done something like this before. I am not comfortable with it on many levels. These men are not professionals and could get seriously hurt or worse. Or, a tree could fall on any of the structures in my yard causing damage. I plan to let my neighbor know, in writing, that we will not be assisting in the felling of these trees. However, if he still insists on removing them himself and he causes us property damage, is that considered negligence because he is not a professional and knew there was the potential for damage? If damage occurs, who's homeowners would have to pay in this situation? Thank you for any help you can give!