Boundary Trees – Branching Off And Getting To The Root Of The Problem

One neighbour wants to remove a tree. The other wants to keep it. This situation never ends well. On May 17, 2013, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice considered such a dispute between two neighbours regarding the fate of a tree near the boundary between their properties.¹ The result was an important clarification in the law surrounding boundary trees – namely that the definition of "trunk" includes the part of the tree that extends beneath the ground, before roots begin.

How did this come about? The Forestry Act provides that every tree with a trunk growing on the boundary between adjoining lands is the common property of the owners of the adjoining lands.² The legislation is such that common trees, or those "growing on the boundary", cannot be destroyed without the consent of land owners.³ However, it says nothing about what constitutes "growing on the boundary"— what part of a tree must be growing on the boundary — for there to be shared ownership rights.