Overhanging branches
English common law gives you the right to cut branches back to your boundary line — and no further. You do not need the owner's permission to do it, though telling them first is both neighbourly and wise. You cannot lean over and cut beyond the line, you cannot enter their land to do it without permission, and you cannot cut in a way that kills or destabilises the tree.
Two catches people miss. First, the cuttings — branches, fruit, timber — legally remain the tree owner's property, so the correct move is to offer them back. (Whether you can simply throw them over the fence is disputed; offering is the defensible route, dumping is the one that starts wars.) Second, if the tree carries a Tree Preservation Order or sits in a conservation area, you need council consent before cutting even branches that overhang your own garden. The overhang gives you no exemption.
Roots and subsidence
The same boundary rule technically applies to roots, but cutting major roots is a different risk category: sever enough of them and you can destabilise the tree — and if it then falls, the person who cut the roots wears the liability. Root work near the boundary should be assessed, not improvised.
For subsidence — clay shrinkage under foundations, common on Leicestershire's heavy clay soils — the route is your buildings insurer, not the neighbour. Insurers investigate, establish whether a specific tree is implicated, and pursue the owner if it is. A claim handled that way costs you the excess; a dispute handled personally can cost you the neighbourhood.
If their tree falls on your property
The tree remains theirs, but they are only liable for your damage if they were negligent — broadly, if the tree was visibly defective and they failed to act on it. A healthy tree brought down by an exceptional storm is an act of God, and each party claims on their own insurance. Photograph everything before clearance, claim on your own policy, and let the insurers settle the negligence question between themselves. Our storm damage and insurance guide covers the process in detail.
High hedges
A hedge is a different legal animal from a tree. Under Part 8 of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, if a neighbour's evergreen hedge (leylandii is the classic) is over roughly two metres and blocking reasonable light, you can complain to the council, which can order a reduction. The council charges a fee for the complaint, expects you to have tried to resolve it directly first — and the law does not apply to deciduous trees or individual trees at all. For those, you are back to the boundary-cutting rights above.
The two mistakes that cost people
- Cutting beyond the boundary — including reaching over to take the top out. Trespass and criminal damage are both on the table, and "it was hanging over my side" is not a defence to cutting parts that were not.
- Killing or destabilising the tree — poisoned roots, ring-barking, major root severance. Liability for the tree's full value plus any damage it then causes. Amenity tree values run to thousands, sometimes tens of thousands.
The version that actually works
Talk first — most owners genuinely do not know their tree is causing a problem, and many will share the cost of sorting it. If you want the overhang handled properly, we regularly do boundary-line pruning with both households informed: cut back to the line, BS3998 cuts the tree can seal, cuttings offered back, TPO check done before anyone starts. It keeps the law, the tree and the neighbours intact.