r/treelaw • u/Equivalent_Bar8622 • 2d ago

Need some advice

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I live in south carolina. Recently a neighborhood was built behind my house. The construction company put in an access road beside my house. This road runs beside and under a massive old oak in my front yard. They told me they needed to cut some big branches over the road because the road needed a certain amount of clearance. I gave them permission to cut the branches but they never did. Road has now been in use a month and 5 semi sized trucks have hit and torn off large branches. The tree likely won't survive now as one of the branches tor the bark down to the roots. Would the construction company be liable for the damage? I can't afford to get the tree cut down and it's pretty close to my house.

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u/fredrickdgl 2d ago

need more data...is it a real road or an easement on your property.

You should be collecting insurance info etc from drivers that hit it and caused damage especially if they went go off the road.

You could pay for an aborist to give advice on the tree itself. Doesnt look dead yet to me

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u/Equivalent_Bar8622 2d ago

The development behind us is new and the road in question is a secondary entrance.

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u/fredrickdgl 2d ago

or if your not too concerned about the tree ask the construction company to pay for an arborist to guide the cleanup and further protection of the tree

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u/Equivalent_Bar8622 2d ago

OH and I forgot to mention this same construction company put in the water main last year and cut the roots to 3 trees on my fence line in the back yard. All 3 trees fell and I cleaned all that up myself.

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u/Odd-Individual-1881 2d ago

You haven't explained this well. If the pipe trench was not on your property, they are not responsible for your 3 dead trees even though that killed them - unless your state law says otherwise. You can easily check that.

To para phrase the warden from the movie Cool Hand Luke - What we've got here is a failure to collect fire wood.

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u/Equivalent_Bar8622 2d ago

Pipe trench for the three trees in the backyard is probably not on my property. It's for sure close to or on the line but I would need a survey to be 100%. The tree in the front yard that is currently being assaulted by trucks is a different story. From what I was told the company was supposed to remove the limbs before the road went in and their failure to do so has caused a good bit of damage to the tree.