Homeowner floored after neighbor makes outrageous claim to private property: 'Hire a lawyer'

Buying a house in the country allows you to escape the hustle and bustle of the city and provides some distance from annoying people. Unfortunately, you can have a bad neighbor nearly anywhere. 

One homeowner took to Reddit for advice when their neighbor threatened to cut down several mature trees on their property.

Homeownership comes with some lessons you learn the hard way. This person had to deal with the unfortunate circumstances that came with a lack of clarity on the rules regarding their easement. 

This type of property right allows someone else access to a portion of your property. It is often in the form of a road, driveway, or path that allows someone to reach their land or home through yours. That was the situation the Redditor faced. 

According to Rocket Money, "An easement grants an individual or entity the right to access your property within certain guidelines."

Unfortunately for this homeowner, the rules of their easement were not clear and led to a dramatic situation. 

"Neighbors in the back of our land have a legal easement to drive down to access their house," they said. "He says that he has the right to cut our trees down the line of our land that are all against the dirt road since he has a legal easement to it."

The original poster went on to say the neighbor was threatening to cut down 10 to 15 mature trees. 

While there is a time and a place for trimming and cutting trees, removing them completely would result in a loss of many benefits. As the OP noted, trees can provide a privacy screen from the road or nosy people walking by. 

Trees also create much-needed shade that keeps your neighborhood cooler. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency detailed that a review study found "urban forests were 3.0° F (1.6°C) cooler than urban non-green areas." 

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This means that in addition to looking nice, trees have the potential to save you money on your home cooling bills. Plus, trees are incredible at trapping planet-warming carbon pollution. 

Luckily, the r/legaladvice Reddit community had plenty to say about the situation. 

"Hire a lawyer and immediately go take photos of the land and trees to document in case your neighbor gets a little chainsaw-trigger happy," recommended one person. 

Someone else had an interesting question to pass along to a legal representative. "One question I'd be curious to ask your lawyer is, 'if they illegally remove trees, can we sue to remove the easement entirely?'"

Finally, another commenter pointed out they may need to go to a local authority for answers. "You need to read the easement, which is at your county recorder's office. Easements in most areas specify the width. If the purpose doesn't include what he claims it does, then he has no rights to property outside the stated width."

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