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Neighbour whos back garden backs onto mine has got the arsehole over the height of my laurel bushes.
Hes whinging about cutting out his light, but before I lop them down a few feet, how high CAN they be? at the moment, they are approx 4m high, and on inspection, notice the bastard has thinned them out on his side. Now, whats the law on this? As I see it, anything encroaching over the boundary is entitled to be cut back to the fence perimeter, but the snide bastard has REALLY gone OTT on MY side. Is this classed as criminal damage or tresspassing?
Any advice welcomed

You can have him for criminal damage if you want to, as he's only supposed to cut overhanging branches AND he has to return those to you when he is done.

As for the height, if the laurels were there before he was, and that height, I think you're entitled to leave them as they are.

Go and get some advice from the CAB though.

Actually you're under no obligation to cut your tree as long as it's not in bad order or likely to cause damage to property.

Thanks Ned, I wanted to tell him to get a hobby, such as growing trees!

At a guess i would say your laurels have reached their mature height and a slight trim is all that is needed, he is of course entitled to cut anything that overhangs his property.

With planting trees and neighbours,they,the trees, should grow so the sun doesn't make shade in the neighbours garden as the sun travels around in the daytime,from East to West.

A neighbour might have a point if the trees are blocking light from his garden,say,sun comes up in the east,your trees are spread across the bottom of your garden blocking the rising sun.

If the trees go DOWN the garden,NOT blocking light,on each side,not much you can do.Trees can become 'overgrown' and it's best to trim them now and again.They are sapping a lot of energy from the ground for water.But that's the trees problem,not yours.Cleaver old trees.

By the way,neighbours get up tight more when the trees are near their house.The roots are not doing the foundations any good....says he with a Yew tree not far from his back door.

As the Prof says, if they're blocking light onto his garden then you should feel obliged to trim them down a little. You may love the trees but remember that others have to put up with them too, even though they're on your property.

My dad's neighbour had a similar problem to you a good few years ago (though he was the guy pissed off at someone else's trees blocking all the light in his garden). He just purchased a bag of lime, dug down to the roots on his side of the fence and 'planted' the lime. End of neighbour's trees.

Be thankful your neighbour hasn't thought of that!

The word I was looking for was 'boundary' trees...these are the one's that cause the most offence.Buy a fence instead.
Trees at the bottom of the garden,scattered around, don't usually.

Just a backache task of picking the fruit-or the starlings will do the job for you.

The council use the 'right for light' rule which means blocking out your neighbours light is against their rules, tree's, bushes cannot be over a certain height (about 10 feet i think) if they are blocking light from neighbouring gardens.
If you go to your local council & ask them they will tell you your rights etc.