Can I cut branches overhanging from my neighbour's tree?

This right is real but much narrower than the way it is usually described. It permits removal of the encroachment, not improvement of your view or reduction of the tree. Almost every dispute that follows comes from one of four things: cutting past the line, entering the neighbour's garden, dumping the cuttings back, or cutting a protected tree. All four are avoidable, and the check that avoids the worst of them is a phone call.

Safety

What you'll need

• Secateurs, loppers or a pruning saw
• A camera
• A plumb line or a string line (optional)

Step by step

1. Ring the council and ask about protections first.A Tree Preservation Order or Conservation Area status protects the whole tree, including the parts hanging over your garden. Cutting without consent is a criminal offence and the penalties are serious. Many councils have an online map; if not, ask the tree officer. Do this before anything else.
2. Establish where the boundary actually is.Your right extends to the boundary line, not to a convenient point, and not to the fence if the fence is not on the line. Check the title plan. A string line or a plumb line dropped from the branch shows you where the line falls in three dimensions.
3. Talk to the neighbour first anyway.You are generally entitled to do this without asking, but telling them is what keeps it civil, and it also lets you agree that they will take the cuttings, or that they will get it done properly themselves. Most of these situations end well when there has been a conversation.
4. Cut only what overhangs, and only to the line.Cutting beyond the boundary is trespass and can amount to criminal damage. Do not lean over, do not reach round, and do not take 'a bit extra so it does not come back so soon'.
5. Do not enter their land.Going into a neighbour's garden to make the cut, or to retrieve a dropped branch, without permission is trespass. If you cannot make the cut from your side, ask.
6. Cut properly, not just to the line.Cut back to a suitable growth point or to the branch collar rather than leaving a bare stub, and make clean cuts. Butchering a branch flush along an imaginary vertical plane damages the tree and is exactly what leads to a claim that you have harmed it.
7. Do not destabilise or kill the tree.If removing the overhang would take so much of one side that the tree becomes unbalanced, unstable or is likely to die, you go beyond the right and expose yourself to a claim for damage. On a large tree, take arboricultural advice rather than judging it yourself.
8. Offer the cuttings back.The branches, and any fruit on them, remain the tree owner's property. Offer them back, politely and in writing if relations are strained. If they decline, you may dispose of them — but throwing them over the fence has been treated as fly-tipping and it guarantees a dispute.
9. Check for nesting birds and bats before cutting.Active nests are protected wherever they are, and mature trees can hold bat roosts. Neither obligation is affected by whose tree it is.
10. Photograph before and after.Dated photographs showing what overhung, where you cut and that you cut cleanly to the line. If the relationship sours later, this is the record that protects you.
11. Know that this is abatement, not a remedy for everything.It does not entitle you to have the tree reduced, to stop leaves falling, or to restore light. Roots encroaching may generally be cut on the same basis, with the same limits and much greater caution, since root severance can make a tree unstable.

Tips

• Where the overhang is large or high, it is usually cheaper and far safer to agree with the neighbour and split the cost of an arborist doing it properly for both gardens.
• In Scotland the position differs in detail from England and Wales, so take local advice rather than assuming the same rules apply.
• If a branch is at risk of causing damage, put your concern in writing to the owner. That written notice is what makes future damage foreseeable, and it changes the liability picture considerably.

Common mistakes

• Cutting a protected tree because only the overhang was touched — A TPO protects the tree, not the airspace. Cutting the overhanging part without consent is an offence regardless of whose garden it hangs in.
• Throwing the cuttings back over the fence — The cuttings are the owner's property, but depositing them on their land without agreement has been treated as fly-tipping, and it destroys any goodwill. Offer them back instead.
• Cutting so hard that the tree is one-sided — It exceeds the right, can destabilise the tree, and opens you to a claim for the damage and even for the tree's replacement value.
• Reaching over the boundary to make a neater job — Trespass, and potentially criminal damage. Cut to the line from your own side.

Questions people ask