Overhanging branches, roots and protected trees

You may cut back branches and roots that cross your boundary. You may not do it if the tree is protected by a tree preservation order, and you may not do it in a conservation area without giving the council six weeks' written notice first. That is the whole of the rule in three sentences, and the second and third sentences are the ones people find out about afterwards.

The common law right is old and well settled. Statutory tree protection sits on top of it and takes precedence, which is a surprise to most householders because the two rules come from completely different places.

The right to cut back

A landowner may remove the parts of a neighbouring tree that encroach over the boundary. You do not need the tree owner's permission, and you do not have to give notice. The limits are practical ones.

You may only cut to the boundary line, not beyond it. You may not enter the neighbour's land to do the work, so anything requiring a ladder against their fence or a climber in their tree needs their agreement. And the work has to be reasonable: the right exists to remove the encroachment, not to reshape or damage the tree.

You also take on a risk. If cutting roots or a large limb destabilises the tree and it later fails, the person who did the cutting may be liable for the consequences. On anything more than light branch work, an arboriculturist's opinion before you start is worth far more than it costs.

What a preservation order does to that right

An order protects the whole tree, including the parts hanging over your garden. Cutting them without the local planning authority's consent is an offence, and the fact that the branches were on your side is not a defence.

Apply to the council for consent, describing the work with the same precision you would use on any other application: the branches identified on a plan or photograph, the length of reduction in metres, and the reason. Councils regularly grant consent for proportionate work to overhanging limbs, and the process takes weeks rather than months. Writing the request properly is covered in more depth in pruning specifications and how to write them.

The regulations contain an exemption for works needed to prevent or abate a nuisance, and this is the most misunderstood provision in tree law. Nuisance here means a nuisance in the legal sense, not an annoyance. Leaves in a gutter, shade over a lawn, birds over a car and fallen fruit have all been treated as insufficient. The courts have also taken a narrow view of how far the exemption extends: it permits what is necessary to deal with the problem, not the most convenient remedy, so where a lesser intervention would work, felling is not covered.

Relying on the exemption without written advice is a gamble with an unlimited fine on the other side. Ask the council instead.

Conservation area trees

Trees in a conservation area that are not covered by an order are protected by a notice requirement. You must give the local planning authority six weeks' written notice before carrying out work to a tree above the stem diameter threshold in the regulations.

During that period the authority can make an order protecting the tree, which converts the situation into the one described above. If it does nothing, the work may proceed within a limited window after the notice period ends.

The notice is not an application, so there is no decision to argue with and no appeal. There is also no fee. Send it early, describe the work in measurements, and diarise both the end of the six weeks and the end of the window in which the work must be carried out.

Who owns what comes off

The branches remain the property of the tree owner, and so does the fruit, whichever side of the boundary it grew on. Strictly, cut material should be offered back.

In practice most people ask first and agree that the material will be taken away. Tipping a pile of cut branches over the fence is a poor idea in law and a worse one in neighbour relations, and where the tree is protected it can look like an admission of unauthorised work.

Photograph the tree from your side before and after, with dates. That record settles most later disagreements about how much was removed, and it is the only evidence you will have if the council asks.

Roots, drains and subsidence

Roots are treated the same way as branches for both the common law right and statutory protection. Cutting the roots of a protected tree without consent is an offence in the same terms as cutting its branches.

Roots in drains are usually a symptom rather than a cause. Roots enter pipes at existing defects, at joints and cracks, because that is where the water is. A drainage survey identifying the defect is more useful than an argument about the tree, and repairing the pipe is generally the answer.

Subsidence is a more serious claim and runs on different rules. A claim against a tree owner requires the damage to be foreseeable, notice to have been given and an opportunity to act, and evidence linking the specific tree to the specific movement, usually through soil and root analysis and level monitoring. It is insurer-led work, and subsidence claims involving neighbouring trees follow a process that householders rarely run themselves.

Where the tree stands in the highway rather than a garden, the highway authority is the owner and the route is different again, as is the position on street trees and utility trenching.

Damaging a protected tree

The offences are serious. Cutting down, uprooting, wilfully destroying or wilfully damaging a protected tree without consent can attract an unlimited fine on conviction in the Crown Court, and the authority can require a replacement tree to be planted.

Ignorance that the tree was protected is not a defence, and orders are not marked on the tree. Check before any work: ask the council's tree officer, search the authority's register, and check whether the address falls in a conservation area. A short email and a week of patience costs nothing.

Contractors are not a shield either. Where a tree surgeon cuts a protected tree on your instruction, both of you may be in difficulty, and a reputable contractor will ask for the consent before quoting.

Resolving it without going formal

Most of these disputes are about being told rather than about the tree. A conversation before work starts, with a description of exactly what you propose to remove, resolves the majority of them.

Where it does not, three routes exist short of litigation. The council's tree officer will often give informal advice on whether a tree is protected and what work would be acceptable. An independent arboriculturist's report gives both sides a neutral description of the tree's condition and what the work would do to it. And for evergreen hedges above two metres causing loss of light, the high hedges provisions in the anti-social behaviour legislation allow a formal complaint to the council once you have made reasonable attempts to settle it directly.

Where trees affect a development proposal rather than a boundary dispute, a tree survey to the British Standard is the document that sets the constraints properly.

Browse all 66 PlanScope report types and start a draft if you are preparing an application that involves trees on or near the site.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.