A Neighbor’s 200-Year-Old Tree Crushed a Rental Home After Ignoring Concerns. The Landlord Won $60,000

When a massive, 200-year-old pecan tree came crashing down onto a rental property in 2023, the landlord says it sent an estimated 40 tons of wood crashing onto the property. The destruction could have been deadly: the landlord believes the tenant would have been killed had she been in her bedroom.

Fortunately, the tenant wasn’t home. The landlord, however, faced an enormous rebuilding project and questions about whether the disaster could have been prevented.

In an Oct. 13 post to Reddit‘s r/treelaw community, landlord u/Cat__fart claimed the neighbor who owned the tree had previously assured them that “multiple arborists” had inspected it. After the collapse, they allegedly discovered that the tree had been identified as dangerous years earlier.

The dispute eventually resulted in a $60,000 insurance settlement, although the relationship between the neighbors never recovered.

Landlord Claims Neighbor Knew Tree Was Dangerous

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Neighbor lied about the health of his 200-year-old pecan tree as it stood; lied after it fell. How I won a nice settlement regardless.
by
u/Cat__fart in
treelaw

The landlord said the neighbor’s assurances dated back to 2019, when they first raised concerns about the towering pecan tree. It wasn’t until several months after the collapse that another neighbor reportedly revealed an earlier arborist assessment identifying the tree as hazardous.

With their own insurance falling short of covering the damage, the landlord took on much of the rebuilding work personally.

“I spend over 400 hours doing demo and the rebuild myself,” they wrote, describing how they searched through the wreckage with bandaged hands to recover the tenant’s jewelry and sentimental family heirlooms.

The landlord also claimed the neighbor initially helped with several hours of cleanup, then took building materials from the destroyed shed. U/Cat__fart says the neighbor asked to salvage some of the fallen pecan wood, only to discover that it was too decayed to use.

$60,000 Settlement Followed Months of Disputes

According to the landlord, securing compensation from the neighbor’s insurer, State Farm, became another exhausting ordeal.

The landlord claimed that months passed without a meaningful response from State Farm, with the insurer allegedly ignoring their requests for roughly ten months. At one point, they said an employee claimed the company couldn’t open their image files and asked for the photographs to be sent on a physical flash drive instead.

After spending approximately 150 hours assembling evidence for the insurance claim, the landlord said State Farm finally agreed to pay $60,000. In the comments, they estimated that the disaster had caused roughly $150,000 in total damage, with the settlement representing only part of the compensation they received. State Farm also reportedly settled separate claims involving the tenants and another neighbor.

About a year after the collapse, the tree’s owner requested a meeting to apologize. The landlord recorded the conversation and claimed the neighbor admitted he “should’ve had the tree cut,” although the discussion soon turned confrontational.

Two years after that meeting, u/Cat__fart sent the neighbor a 3,000-word email, “quoting his own ‘apology’ back to him, as closure and a final word I’d been denied.” They also included a request that he rebuild his fence, which the landlord described as the only damage his own property had sustained.

The neighbor reportedly never responded. As the landlord put it, “I’m eternally grateful that the only thing to die was my relationship with my neighbor.”