Liability for Neighbourhood Damage | Legal Aid Centre

Questioner

The neighbour has a gardener/landscaper who removed the shared hedge with our consent. In doing so, however, he caused damage to our property on our property. Who is liable for this? The gardener or his client, the neighbour? Both refuse liability. The neighbour has not caused any damage, he says. The gardener says: the neighbour instructed me to carry out the work as it was done. He did not inform me about cables and pipes in the ground on your property. When pulling out the conifers from the hedge, pipes and cables next to the hedge in the ground on my property were pulled to pieces. The gardener has no insurance. The neighbour also refuses to repair at his own expense because he too had no knowledge of the cables and pipes. What now?

Lawyer

The gardener is liable. If he has no insurance, you can hold him personally liable if it turns out that he has caused damage. I advise you to take photos of the damage and not to have another company repair the damage, because then the gardener's liability will lapse. Do you have any questions? Please feel free to ask.