Legislation

The arm of the law – Buren

What about those regulations again? We refer briefly to Hendrik Baumans, Area Law Firm in Boer & Tuinder, thanks to the association for garden contractors ‘Groen Groaien’

From On September 1, 2021, new rules will come into effect on the distance of plantings and on the right to request a neighbor to prune or grub trees. The former rules in this regard from the field code are integrated into the civil code. The distance to be observed is for trees that are at least two meters high at least two meters up to the plot boundary .

This is half a meter for shrubs and hedges. If an owner estimates that a tree will grow taller than two meters, he must plant it at a greater distance from the plot boundary. The legislator is therefore abandoning the original definitions of high and low-trunk trees in the Field Code.

In a legal dispute, the court must always impose the least drastic measure in its decision. This is to say that the shortening or pruning the tree is always preferable to grubbing it up , if this is sufficient to prevent further nuisance for the neighbor. If roots shoot through or branches overhang above the plot boundary, there is an objective disregard of the neighbor’s right to property, so that the latter can in principle put an end to that infringement of property. Here, too, the legislator is striving for simplification and standardization at the level of the remedy. The old distinction between roots – which you could cut yourself – and branches – which you couldn’t cut yourself – disappears and makes way for a uniform procedure.

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