Protected Trees

It has become more and more critical to understand protected trees when buying a new home. Tree protection ordinances are specific to the city that created them. Although state law overrides city ordinances, do not simply assume that laws such as CA Civil Code 3479 protecting a property owner from the “obstruction to the free use of property so as to interfere with the comfortable enjoyment off … property” will easily let you deal with a protected tree.

Protected Trees in Palo Alto

See https://julianalee.com/reinfo/protected-trees.htm#tree-list for more details but a simplified list of protected trees in Palo Alto is:

• Any Bigleaf Maple, California Incense Cedar, Coast Live Oak, Blue Oak, California Black Oak, or Valley Oak that is 11.5″ in diameter.
• Any Coast Redwood that is 18″ in diameter.
• Any tree that is not a species listed as undesirable and is 15″ in diameter.

Removing a Protected Tree

There are specified allowed reasons for removing a protected tree. One reason is that the tree impacts the foundation or eaves of a primary residence. Unfortunately, there are many people who will try to limit what you can do.

A long-time resident of Palo Alto wrote about his ordeal caused by his neighbor’s tree roots damaging his foundation and house. We reached out to him to learn more.

When the homeowner published his experience, many people were immediately upset that he succeeded in forcing his neighbor to remove the protected Coast Redwood Trees. Some people probably didn’t even try to understand the situation. Some people assumed the trees were there first (they weren’t). Other people apparently selfishly decided the trees were nice and weren’t causing themselves any problems, so the trees should be protected.

The biggest problem for the damaged home’s owner was that the tree owner was selling his house. The owner of the damaged house warned the real estate agent, who was offering the home for sale, that he would sue the new owner to remove the trees.

Of course, very few people want to buy a house, knowing they will immediately be sued. The listing agent indemnified a potential home buyer, telling him that “according to information he has, there wouldn’t be a problem”, and if there was a problem, he would pay for the tree removal. The new homeowner no longer had any reason to agree to remove the trees because he thought the trees were pretty and he had little legal risk.

The damaged home’s owner had no choice but to file a lawsuit. The real estate agent used his own in-house legal council to oppose the lawsuit, spending tens of thousands of dollars. To make things worse, the agent’s team withheld information, ultimately exposing himself and his brokerage to fraud charges. The agent and, presumably, the brokerage hired an outside attorney to represent them.

The owner of the damaged house succeeded in getting the new homeowner to remove the trees and getting the new homeowner’s insurance company to pay $300,000 for the damage caused by the trees. However, it took over two years to resolve the three court cases. The judge, in one of the three legal cases, looked at state law, ignored the City Of Palo Alto ordinance, and ruled that the new homeowner was responsible for the damage the trees did.

Learn more about Palo Alto’s protected trees at https://julianalee.com/reinfo/protected-trees.htm.