Lawyers have explained exactly who is responsible when a neighbour’s hedge overhangs in your garden. Overgrown hedges and bushes are often a source of tension between neighbours, and they can often lead to nasty disputes when people aren’t clear on who is responsible for taking care of them. If you find your neighbour’s bush hanging over your garden fence, it can be hard to know what to do. While it grows from their garden, it encroaches on your property.
There are clear rules when it comes to cutting back hedges, which have been explained by the lawyers at Bonallack & Bishop Solicitors.
“It could be that an unkept hedge is encroaching on your property, or even that your neighbour has cut or trimmed a hedge which was your responsibility to maintain,” they explained. But before you take any action, there are some things you need to be aware of.
Firstly, you should establish who the legal owner of the hedge is. You could face legal costs if it comes to light that you have cut a hedge that you don’t own.
You will have to check the Land Registry to establish who owns the boundary. This will help determine who is responsible for the hedge and at what stage it encroaches on your property.
But when it comes to hedges that have clearly grown and encroached into what is your legal property, you have the right to trim them back to where the boundary of your property is. However, if you cut a hedge on the other side of the boundary, this could be considered an offence under the Criminal Damage Act 1971, unless you can give a lawful excuse.
The experts explain: “As you can see, each situation can vary wildly, so there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to boundary and hedge neighbour disputes.
“The only way to settle a dispute, often, can be to bring in an experienced solicitor who will be able to look at all the information to hand and offer some advice as to how things could be resolved.”
Meanwhile, there is an important law people should know about before cutting a hedge. There is the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which sets out the criminal offence of cutting or removing a hedge where birds are nesting.
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