Neighbouring property is a strata title, how do I communicate?

As it isn’t your tree, you will be waiting for quite some time.

Just because you believe it’s dangerous (an arborist – in order to protect their ability to professionally insure themselves, also errs on the side of caution) doesn’t mean it has to be removed post haste.

Same applies even if it is listed as ‘weed’ within your LGA: it doesn’t mean the owners have to remove it post haste, as there are different classifications of weeds, and in some councils an established tree can be both a ‘weed’ and fall under the tree preservation act simply because of its age and size.

Assuming the owners corp actually wants their tree that is on their property removed, they will need to find funds (your offer to pay some of the costs notwithstanding). This can take up to 6 months.

I assume you are in NSW? If the tree is still standing after the freakish storms and 110+km winds that battered NSW for two days at the start of the month, then the tree is probably fine, which means that the owners corp may also have a harder time getting individual owners to agree to remove the tree. For individual owners, that tree may provide privacy, shade, etc, etc.

My honest advice would be to let it rest and save yourself some angst as they are under no obligation to remove a tree on their property.

I just saw your reply mentioning a ‘lawyers letter’ getting attention, Jimmy, after I asked Struggler about costs of by-laws in another post.

Roughly how much would it cost to see a lawyer and get a ‘lawyers letter’ written for an issue like this which would be important to the person with the issue / problem.

I’m asking because in my strata there are sometimes issues which might be helped by someone (such as me, I’m afraid) getting a ‘lawyers letter’.

Under normal circumstances this would be a good idea, but I would be very hesitant to get a lawyers letter drafted for this matter: it could seriously backfire.

In your initial post you state that you have obtained an arborists report. This could not conceivably have been done without the arborist being able to be very close to the tree to inspect it.

Unless the tree is absolutely on your property line (you don’t actually state this or in fact what issues the tree is causing or may start to cause), the arborist and yourself would technically have had to trespass on your neighbours land to get close enough to actually inspect the tree.

As you have then gone and raised the stakes by sending a lawyers letter, the strata, when they do respond, will need to do so in kind (ie with another lawyers letter)….if you or the arborist trespassed on their land in the first instance, can you see how the exchanges will likely play out?

Strata corporations do not have a community charter and are therefore notoriously slow to deal with. If you really want an answer, ask for the strata managers details from the owner that you have been talking to and then pay a visit to his/her office.

Yes, Quincy, and that applies just as much to free-standing homes as it does to strata blocks. It’s time to stop kidding ourselves that everything is sweet and lovely in quarter-acre block country while strata blocks are seething sinks of discontent.  I know people in free-standing homes who have been threatened, abused and persecuted by selfish and antisocial neighbours who refuse to observe even the basic decencies. 

And the problem in stand-alone houses is that you literally do stand alone. There’s no building manager, strata manager or Executive Committee to back you up when your neighbours turn nasty. 

Of all the bashings and even shootings that have happened when neighbourhood disputes got out of hand, I can’t think of one that occurred in an apartment block. So can we stop this myth right here? The problem isn’t where people live, it’s how people live.

Live in a strata block and you might increase the chances of having an antisocial neighbour simply because you have more of them – but you also have plenty of ways of dealing with them. Live in a house and you’re on your own … in every sense. I hope you are never unlucky enough to have a nasty neighbour move in next door – then you’ll find out here’s another side to this coin.