Who's responsible when a tree falls?

During the storm we experienced last week we had several tenants inform us that trees had fallen in their yard. In one case, a neighbor called to tell us that a tree in "our" yard fell onto her car. In almost all of these scenarios the person whose property is damaged wants the tree's owner to pay for the damages. Outside of negligence, however, the tree's owner is not responsible for the damages to the neighbor's property.

The rule can be summed up as follows: It's your property, so take care of it, unless you can prove your neighbor was negligent. If a dead limb of your neighbor's tree is overhanging your property line, it is your responsibility to take care of the issue (without causing unnecessary damage to the tree, of course).

If your neighbor wants you to pay for damages, it isn't simply sufficient to say that the tree was unsafe. They would have to prove that you knew or should have known that the tree was unsafe. Some cases have determined that the tree owner wasn't liable because the neighbor didn't maintain the portion of the tree that was overhanging the neighbor's property.

When one of Alarca's tenants calls us to tell us the neighbors' tree fell into our tenant's yard, we send someone out as soon as possible to examine and take photos of the fallen tree and the damage. We also send a tree-service out to remove the portion of the fallen tree that is on our tenant's property. If warranted, we'll contact the landlord's insurance company. The premise is simple - we want to take care of our residents. We can deal with who pays for the damage after the problem has been resolved.

Property owners can best protect themselves by ensuring that their trees are examined periodically to ensure they are not obviously dead or decaying. Any dead branches or trees should be removed by a professional tree service. Alarca encourages our tenants to report dead trees or any other unsafe condition to ensure that our residents are kept safe and our clients are protected against unnecessary liability claims.