Quote:
Originally Posted by Noah930
Good points.
An arborist (not sure if picked by the neighbor or my parents' rental agency) give an extensive report documenting the root damage and how it was most likely from my parents' 3 trees. The 3 trees were on my parents' property, close to the property line.
Not sure how long the trees and neighbor's pool have been there. Chicken or egg? My parents have owned this rental house for probably over 40 years, so the trees may likely be that old.
Good point on having neighbor sign off on a release, if my parents wind up paying for anything.
I really appreciate the input of the braintrust here on PPOT. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't way off base when I heard the neighbor wanted my parents to foot half the tab for the pool plumbing equipment. I didn't see the neighbors offering to split the cost of taking down the trees.
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In that case I'd probably just check if the arborist has been misled in any way. Their report may state as a premise that there were no other trees. Check with your tenants whether your neighbour recently removed trees of their own.
If they have the report they're probably serious about making you pay. Get them to acknowledge in an email / writing that you're not present at the property regularly. Ask them when the pool was put in and point out that they didn't at that point a) take measures to protect against the roots and b) notify you of the foreseeable outcome of THEIR pool building, and point out their duty to mitigate their own losses. I'd still admit no liability and verbally offer them cents in the dollar on their pool costs and nothing for the fence, as that should have been agreed in advance.
If you feel duty bound to pay half of the fence, offer them that amount for the pool.
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