Trees are a very common reason for trouble between neighbours. It’s so easy to lose it when your neighbour’s tree roots are ruining your driveway and he won’t do a thing about it. It’s infuriating that he won’t cut down that old decaying tree, even though it’s an accident waiting to happen. But getting into a fight right away is never a good idea – doing your homework and negotiating will get you better results.
The first thing to do is to get prepared. There are local laws for pretty much any annoyance your neighbour’s tree is causing you, so it pays to get familiar with them – including making a copy of the relevant page and highlighting the paragraph that addresses your problem. Ring your local council or visit their website and ask or search for the relevant information.
The majority of problems with trees happen when your neighbour’s tree is shedding leaves, branches or fruit on your side of the fence, which means that you have more mess to clean, or when the roots of that tree are ruining your plumbing or driveway.
Some general rules about trees are that you can cut / remove whatever is on your side of the fence – provided that you don’t cause the whole tree to collapse on your neighbour’s property. But if you care about good neighbourly manners, the right thing is to discuss it with them first. He or she may not be aware of the problem – after all, people don’t look over their neighbour’s fence very often.
Now, discussing the problem with your neighbour… sometimes is easier said than done. In my case it was quite awkward – I didn’t even know my neighbour’s name, we’ve never spoke about anything (not even the weather!). Don’t let this happen to you – just say ‘Hello’ occasionally when you see them. Well before you have had any problems 
With or without discussion, whenever you’ve removed parts of the tree that were on your property, you need to (don’t laugh!) return them to their rightful owner, your neighbour . Which is why the discussion part becomes even more important. Imagine the look on your neighbour’s face when you dump a pile of roots and branches on his driveway: “Here you go, buddy!”
And one last thing – damage to property is a big issue, but danger to health is a much more serious one. Sometimes people have poisonous trees growing near the fence with branches overhang your property or poisonous plants (you can see the full list of poisonous plants in Victoria here)
If you are worried about the safety of your children, know this: your neighbour is required by law to cut the overhanging branches of such trees / plants, and raising this issue with him could be the simplest solution to the problem.
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thumbs up for this blog.