Thanks live oak lady! Insurance apparently considers it an "act of God" if a live tree limb falls, so my neighbor's homeowners insurance will cover his damage. But, I still can't find out if the limbs hanging over his property are considered his or mine. Also, I can't find if I am responsible for clean-up on his property (example: a limb falls in his driveway without damaging anything). If anyone knows this please let me know.
I think, like you said, that he can cut limbs hanging over his property, but I don't think I have to let him on my property to take care of that.?
Thanks!!!

I would think that if the tree is in your yard and it's healthy, your neighbor can't tell you what to do.
Where is the tree located? As a homeowner, I've got to say that nothing drives me more insane than trees planted on property lines. My last house and my current house are surrounded by trees that neighbors planted right against the fence. I'm always having to pick up junk that falls into my yard, including twigs with really long razor sharp thorns that I tend to find with my bare feet.
I would have an arborist come out and see about possibly shaping the tree to keep it away from his property before he hires someone to just lop it off at the fence line.

I have also understood that once a limb is on the neighbors side of the line they can cut at will. They can not come cut the whole tree down only that limb up to the line.
Mike

There are more feuds over trees and property lines than anything in the neighborhood. A neighbor can cut your tree branch off at the property line if he so desires. Someone just cut a beautiful draping oak branch at the property line off of a 250 year old oak. I could hear the oak scream from my vantage point. Sometimes you can reason with a neighbor but legally he can cut at the property line.
C'est la Napoleonic code.

A neighbor can only trim a tree limb that encroaches on his property if it substantially interferes with the enjoyment of his property. He may not just trim it to the line, although you may have to get an injunction (or TRO) to stop him. Louisiana changed the law several years ago regarding strict liability for damages caused by falling limbs. For liability to attach to the tree's owner some knowledge of a defect in the tree must be proved.

As a practical matter it is neighborly to pay the damaged neighbor's insurance deductible.

I have some experience in this as a lawyer and a former pecan tree owner.

Django,
Thank you for the response. I have one question for you regarding your comments on it being neighborly to pay the neighbor's insurance deductible. From my understanding, insurance deductibles are to save the insurance companies from handling small nuisance claims. my DH and I choose a large deductible to save money each year, so if my deductible is $2,500 and my neighbor's is $500, would it be fair for him to have to pay up to $2500 if his tree damages my property when we would only have to pay $500 if our tree damages his property? Why should he pay more when we choose to save money?
BTW, we did pay half of the car damage just to be neighborly, but he is now calling all the time with ridiculous demands for money.

On Saturday night a neighbors huge hackberry tree fell from her yard, crashed through the wood fence and landed on our roof over our bedroom. Lucky for me, the tree was stopped by the brick structure of our house or I would be dead. I was asleep in my bed right under where the tree fell. For years my husband has been asking my neighbor to please cut the tree for the obvious reasons. He knew the tree had a root disease. She did not cut the tree and now we are at a odds with her about responsibility. We have homeowners and so does she. Our deductible is 500.00, but the point is that she was aware of the tree problem, but there is no way for us to prove it. She is now talking to us like an insurance agent and is hesitant to discuss anything. I would like to be able to clear the air and get on with the repairs, but I also would like to know, for my peace of mind what others in this situation think about the fallen tree law. Thanks. Callaghan

We live next door to a neighbor that has neglected for years all the trees on his property and of course all his trees are kissing close to the property line on both sides of his property. His tree next to our driveway is a huge white oak tree that must be at least 60 to 70 years old. The limbs have begun to lay his roof and have grown to be over half of my driveway. Getting ready to go into hurricane season my fear is this tree will fall on our home. We want to cut the limbs that are over our driveway back 3 arborist have given 3 different versions of how to proceed I think because the neighbor is not the most pleasant person to deal with and they don't want an issue with him. How do we proceed

The cutter isn't always wrong. I had to cut back a neighbor's mulberry as it was infested with leaf spot and was infecting everything I planted. It also produces way too much shade and is way too large for the spot it's in (it's growing all over her house and mine). It also produces no berries. It's at the end of its life (75 years or so) and if it falls down on my house she will not be able to afford fixing the damage. She also refuses to have it inspected for termites. I wish people would plan better when planting trees. Then there's the people who plant weeping willows on the curb, destroying the water lines and causing flooding.

I'm sorry.... Louisiana tree issues in many of these cases prefer to equate personal property and life against an unsafe tree- forget how beautiful or how old the tree.

And when their tree damaged or maybe kills another person simply because of refusal to remove or simply cut back sounds like Crazy People talking. To add insult to injury a person quivers over the lowest insurance deductibles when YOUR tree causes the damage! What?

Listen, I love trees and the clean positive environments contributions. But people where there are living breathing tax paying residents those residents should be provided the community safety for which tax paying property owners expectations should common-sensibly provide.

Call me a crazy California transplant to Louisiana. Below the mason dixie line seems to permits a sense of thinking that becomes a struggle to stay SANE!

My mother's property is surrounded by dangerously overhanging trees and for 2 years nothing can be done about it according to this insane Louisiana law (thinking). Lyndon Johnson, a Caddo Rep placed a Vote for Me sign in the midst of the disturbing rubbish surrounded by junk and trees. When contacted his response was he could do nothing about the overgrown area... it belonged to a property owner.

Let's use common sense and yes neighborly would not be asking too much.

My opinion, laws and thinking needs to change!!

Still fighting for resolutions.....

My neighbors trees were rotting at the base and have been for a while i have spoken to them many times about them needed to be taken care of one actually fell about 3 or 4 months ago but was leaning into another tree that was in just as bad of shape but where it was still on his property I couldn't do anything about it but beg for it to be taken care of and document it by photos and threw my home owners insurance company due to knowing it was going to damage my property if it rolled and broke free. Well it fell hit my house, my outdoor kitchen building, my camper. those my home owners will take care of. What they wont take care of were the two mature about 8 foot tall blood orange trees that I had growing in my yard. They were loaded with fruit but were not yet ready for harvest. Is the neighbor responsible for replacing my trees since he was not responsible for taking care of the two trees in his yard that he new were in bad shape? Both of my blood orange trees had to be removed to about a 4 inch stump thats left.