But why not get creative? I don’t know what land is worth there, but how much would it cost you to fix the damage? $1k? Well, if the guy who didn’t know he owned it does own it, ask him if he would give you the land to settle the cost of repair? If he says no, then tell him he has to pay for $x amount of damage (get quotes from professionals), and have the tree removed etc etc within a certain time frame as your losing money on your investment property which he could be liable for. If he didn’t know he owned it, he won’t be sad to see it go to settle a potentially big headache for him. If your a handy man, you could probably doa lot of the work yourself, and then either sell, develop, or add the land to yours for a bigger yard.
Ok, here’s one for the hopper. I have a rental property that I have been marketing and this last week end there was a big storm. Long story short, the neighbor has a big a@# tree that fell through my fence, tore down part of the gutter, broke the siding and broke a window.I went to the guy and he told me that the two lots were purchased at the auction sperately, the lot the house is on and the lot between his house and my house (the portion in which the tree was)So I approach him and his first repsonse was he didn’t think he owned that property.Ok so I politely refresh his memory into thinking back to when he offered to sell the portion of land to me.Anyway what can I do, if he does not have the vacant land between his house and my house insured and that is where the tree lied?
I had a similar situation and the question came down to “Was the tree alive or dead?”. In other words, should your neighbor have known of this hazard? If it was dead, then it is his fault and his insurance pays, if not, then you insurance pays.
Re: Fallen tree on rental property - Posted by Matt (MPD) IL
Posted by Matt (MPD) IL on July 13, 2003 at 02:45:05:
The area I believe you’re referring to was recently ravaged by a storm and tons of houses in the area have had the same problem with trees falling on all sorts of things. Not that this makes your situation any better, however I would assume that your insurance agent would have no problem tracking down the owner of the land and whether or not they are insured. Your own policy should take care of the damage (provided your coverage allows for such a thing) if the owner of the property (tree) doesn’t have his own property insured.
My thought is, rather than battle with my “neighbor” I’d let my insurance company handle the fight. You’ve paid your premiums and you need/want your fence fixed. If they believe they can get his insurance company to pay the bill they will most definitely fight for it. If not, your claim for this disaster shouldn’t hurt your insurance much.