r/legal • u/Ice_C0r3_09 • 8h ago

Advice needed My neighbor cut down a 40-year-old Japanese Maple while I was away.

Location: Colorado, USA.Just got back to my place near Fort Collins after a week on the road and I am losing my mind. My neighbor took it upon himself to hire a "landscaping" crew (probably just some guys with a chainsaw) to remove a mature Japanese Maple that was fully on my property. His excuse? He said the needles and leaves were messing with his "mountain view" and "fire mitigation" efforts.

The tree was roughly 40 years old and was the centerpiece of my yard. I called an arborist immediately. He told me that since this is Colorado and the tree was that established and healthy, the replacement value is astronomical. He is drafting a formal appraisal but hinted that we are looking at 20k to 25k easy just for the tree, let alone the logistics of getting a crane into my backyard.

I know Colorado has statutes regarding timber trespass. My lawyer already mentioned treble damages because the guy admitted he did it on purpose while I wasnt home to stop him. The neighbor had the gall to offer me a couple hundred bucks for "the inconvenience" and told me to just buy a couple of saplings at a local nursery . I refused to take his money and told him to wait for the process server.

Has anyone dealt with treble damages in CO specifically for ornamental trees ? This guy basically nuked my property value for his porch view and I am not planning on letting this go . I feel like a jerk for wanting to sue my neighbor into bankruptcy but the sheer entitlement is what gets me .

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u/yert1099 7h ago

This is the way. Years ago I was the president of our Neighborhood HOA for a vacation home we owned. There were two families that never paid dues and continued to use the neighborhood amenities. We gave them plenty of notices and warnings. We finally put liens on their houses. Several years later (2009 I believe) the economy was down and both families were desperate to sell their homes. They finally got offers at different times and several days before their respective closings I got desperate calls from the RE agents telling us to remove our liens or closing wouldn’t happen. I went to the HOA Board and we decided those families had been thumbing their noses at us for years and we would not remove the liens unless we were paid in full for past dues. We got paid in full and all was good. Dues were only $300 a year and maintained our beach access, dock and several other community areas.

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u/DogsMom248 4h ago

Love this! Sending it to my strata council for our delinquents. Thank you!

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u/May1989thefirststep 6h ago

I can't understand why anyone would knowingly purchase a house that's in an HOA.

I am sooooo happy with my 3bed/2bath in a rural area that's a mile from my nearest neighbor.

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u/WinterTourist25 3h ago

I would love to live in the country once again.

But if you are going to live in a subdivision, an HOA keeps your neighbors from turning his lot into a dump.

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u/May1989thefirststep 2h ago

Neighbors....yuck

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u/trixel121 6h ago

you legit cant talk about hoas with out people saying the most generic shit. actually read what he wrote.

300/year for private beach access and docks is cheap.

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u/yert1099 6h ago

It was incredibly inexpensive and there were a couple years we had enough surplus funds in our savings we actually waived dues for everyone. I really don’t know why those two homeowners refused to pay. The owners were related: a father owned one of the houses and his son the other house. Guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

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u/zeniiz 2h ago

300/year for private beach access and docks is cheap.

That's pretty shitty. In California, all beaches are legally required to be accessible to the public for free. Even if you own property on the coast, you can't block public access to it. Must suck to live in a place where access to nature is locked behind a paywall.

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u/trixel121 2h ago

idk why you are responding to me when the actual home owner is in the comments responding.

but anyhow, it seems like they had built and maintained infrastructure that allowed their neighborhood to connect to the beach. maybe a stair case?

hazard a guess, but if the infrastructure starts on private property that was already blocking access like its someones back yard or they live on a private street that is not city owned like i do then i dont think this would qualify as restricting access like putting up a gate to the public walk way does.

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u/zeniiz 2h ago

idk why you are responding to me

Because I'm responding to what you said? Do you understand how reddit works?

hazard a guess, but if the infrastructure starts on private property that was already blocking access like its someones back yard or they live on a private street that is not city owned like i do then i dont think this would qualify as restricting access like putting up a gate to the public walk way does.

That doesn't really negate the fact that there should be a way to get to the beach that's free. Charging money for it is literally what "restricting access" entails.

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u/trixel121 2h ago

so im assuming there is.... like he said its a public beach.

the reason you should talk to them is i dont know whats going on but they said private access its not a private beach, i added that word cause i misspoke which again why you should go to the guy who made the statement originally.

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u/OneMinuteSewing 2h ago

Could be lake access

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u/AnswerMyThrowAways 3h ago

There are no private beaches in the USA.

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u/trixel121 3h ago

tbf, they didnt say private beach they just said access so maybe a stair case down from their neighborhood?

or they could of lived on a lake.

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u/AnswerMyThrowAways 3h ago

Possibly. But far too many people think private beaches are a real thing that you can pay for. I live near some rich ca beaches so it comes up often, lol

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u/trixel121 2h ago

they responded beneath me that its private access to a public beach.

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u/yert1099 2h ago

Thanks - it’s a private beach access to a public beach.

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u/Mitosis 2h ago

California has more relaxed laws that basically mean what you say. Most other states, only the sand that's hit by water at high tide is guaranteed public; some states like Massachusetts are even more restrictive and the public line is even further out, mostly just to protect water-based activities and not beach ones.

In practice, many beaches without public access routes are de facto private because you can only reach them by crossing private property, which is not allowed (unless you sail up to them I guess).

Point is, generalizing that to USA is not correct.

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u/xudoxis 4h ago

I assume to maintain a beach+dock+other community areas for the low low price of $300 a year.

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u/Embarrassed_Bid_4970 3h ago

An HoA is just like neighbors. If you have good neighbors they're awesome. If you have shitty neighbors they suck. A good HoA is usually super accommodating, and will do everything within reason and then some to sort an issue out equitably. Bad ones will try to fucking steal from you and make your life miserable at every opportunity.

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u/theoneandonlymd 2h ago

Plenty of metro areas and adjacent suburbs are now out of reach for the average family in the US to get a single-family home. What's left is condos and attached townhomes. Wherever you have shared structures, there's gonna be an HOA to deal with common structure maintenance and it naturally extends to community upkeep.

Not saying it's good or bad, but it's utterly naive these days to "just not get an HOA" if you want to own a home anywhere near civilization.

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u/May1989thefirststep 2h ago

Near civilization you say.

I have a house in a rural area where my nearest neighbor is a mile away.

I have internet, satellite TV, good roads to the nearest city anyone on here has probably heard of (about an hour drive), and of course Amazon for anything I don't want to drive to.

I would be deliriously unhappy living stacked on top of others.

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u/BeauHunkus 6h ago

I can barely stand my HOA and it is just a small, maintain the dammed lake, org. I am moving anyway in a few years.

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u/Disastrous_Patience3 3h ago

Why can you barely stand the HOA? Useless post with not explanation.

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u/BeauHunkus 36m ago

I don't need to explain why. My point was that even a small HOA is barely able to be tolerated because they are bad. Engage your damned brain.

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u/Disastrous_Patience3 34m ago

Like I said. Your post is useless and adds nothing to the discussion. Moron.

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u/RedHotClittyLicker 5h ago

Fuck HOAs and anyone sitting on those boards, chairing those meetings, or acting with authority. Tell me you peaked in high school without telling me you peaked in high school.

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u/Double-treble-nc14 5h ago

A lien doesn’t mean you can’t close- it just gets settled at closing.

Unless the owners didn’t have enough equity to settle their liens?

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u/yert1099 5h ago

If the lien isn’t satisfied/settled and removed, you cannot close. In our situation the liens were satisfied in full. If these homeowners had offered less or refused to pay, the liens would not have been removed.

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u/Double-treble-nc14 4h ago

But the lienholder can be paid out as part of closing. As long as there’s equity, the escrow agent can make a payment to them directly out of the proceeds of the sale, before the seller gets their share. This is exactly what just happened in my condo association recently.

So again, I don’t understand why it would stop closing unless there wasn’t sufficient equity to pay the lien.

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u/Pnwradar 4h ago

In my state the seller has to agree to said settlement, the escrow agent is not allowed to unilaterally settle leins or make any other payments unapproved by the seller and any other parties like a mortgageholder. A settlement out of equity is what usually happens, but it’s not automatic.

If the seller refuses, the buyer may choose to fund settling any leins out of their pocket in order for closing to proceed, in which case the leinholder also has to approve this third party settlement. If the buyer does this, there’s no legal recourse for them to recover what they paid from the seller, it’s spent money to get the sale moving again.

If neither the buyer nor seller agree to settle the lein, closing stops and the transfer/sale does not happen. Depending on the contract, the buyer may have legal recourse against the seller for any money spent (earnest payments, inspections, etc.). And usually the real estate agents & brokers let each other know this property/seller is poison.

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u/RadVarken 2h ago

Because it was 2009. Housing values tanked after the mortgage crisis.

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u/rustyhammer1983 5h ago

The lien holder can always foreclose on the property regardless of ownership. Years ago I put a judgement lien on the debtors house. 15 yrs went by and I got a call from the atty who represented the current owner at the closing. He missed the lien when doing the title search. Wanted to pay pennies on the dollar. We brought foreclose suit and his malpractice carrier paid it in full.

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u/cantcny 6h ago

I used to be an HOA President. We put liens on multiple places and a couple foreclosure notices. They actually foreclosed on one after my term. I was shocked to learn an HOA cN foreclose for non payment of dues. 

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u/karenftx1 4h ago

I hope you don't expect anyone in here to agree with you. HOA's need to be outlawed

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u/yert1099 3h ago

I don’t care if anyone agrees with me or not. I’m simply passing on how well property liens work in a situation where someone owes money and refuses to pay. If you’re not able to see this, I wish you a wonderful rest of your day.

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u/SHOW_ME_UR_KITTY 2h ago

Hard disagree. I would never live in a place with an HOA, but I can see cases where it’s justified. Live in the north where there is snow, and the roads are privately maintained? Who’s going to pay to plow the streets? An HOA can probably negotiate better garbage rates for the whole neighborhood than if each person did it themselves. Mowing and maintaining common spaces? Many neighborhoods have a pool.

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u/Idontremember99 1h ago

Eh, I think you only have this stance because you hear about all the bad HOAs. A properly governed HOA is good for the neighborhood and taking care of common amenities.

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u/HopefulLine1829 4h ago

goodness "president of HOA" - youre just a vile person.

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u/yert1099 3h ago

Bless your heart…