Can you cut the roots of your neighbors tree

Mark: About a month ago you had somebody on who had a tree problem. His backyard, the tree was in his neighbor's yard. It was a dead tree and what I remember is that the person whose property was being impacted had the right to sever the roots, and I think a limb or two, as well. My question is regarding the roots of a tree that's still alive. Would I have the right to do that? I'm about to put in a fence and I want to make sure that--

Attorney Tom Olsen: Mark, think about it this way. Your property line to your home goes down to the center of the earth and up into space. You can trim any branches or roots that come over your property line, onto your property, as long as you are reasonable. Now you say, "Tom, what's reasonable?" I don't know. If you cut enough roots that you killed that tree, that's not reasonable. If you shaved off half the tree, like a crew cut, that's probably not reasonable. That's the key there, Mark, does that help you at all?

Mark: Well, I suppose a little bit. It wouldn't be all of the roots. I don't know if the tree needs all of them, but if gets to a point where it starts to reposition that vinyl fence, I don't know, I'd go for it. [laughs]

Tom: Well, I have a neighbour--

Mark: I don't know.

Tom: I had a neighbor that had the same situation going on, and in their situation, what they did was that they-- Normally, the vinyl fence comes right down to your grass or the roots, or it's going to be the ground. On that particular panel, they raised the panel by 6 inches so that they didn't really have to cut the roots of the tree. I'm not suggesting you do that, I'm just giving you that as an option.

Mark: Okay. Well, Thanks [unintelligible 00:01:53].

Tom: Okay, Mark. Good luck to you, appreciate that.

[00:01:57] [END OF AUDIO]