Home Owner planting Trees on HOA Common Area

Greetings,

I'm curious if anyone has had this situation. We have a home owner that is offering to plant 19 Leyland Cypress trees outside of his back property line on HOA Common Area. There is a road, then the HOA common area with sidewalk and then his fence on his property line. He wants to plant the trees just past his fence as a buffer from the road, but this is HOA property.

Several questions come to mind, who owns the trees? If one tree dies, who is responsible for replacing and maintaining? Would this increase our landscaping costs since cutting around 19 trees takes more time?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

Matt

I'm curious to know if there is enough room on his own property for the trees.

Mathew,
You should reconsider the choice of Leland Cypress trees because they can die off quickly and become a huge-ugly mess - there are many dead Leland Cypress trees in Maryland now.

Mathew,

If the H.O. plants the trees on common property, it will be considered a DONATION from the owner. The common area is designated as common which makes the association responsible for any care and concequences of the trees being there. My vote would be a definite NO. He wants them planted for his own privacy and noise abatement, not for the beauty of the area outside of his fence.

He apparently does not want to plant them within his own fence, probably because of the loss of yard area. My comments would be...too bad. You cannot encroach on common area, period!

Matt,

The formal document would be the conditional approval letter (you may plant trees under the condition and understanding that you and all future owners of the lot will be fully responsible for the care, maintenance and/or removal of the trees). Additionally, even with precedence, the board can limit the number and type of tree if it's a concern.

Hi Matthew,

In my (Maryland) HOA, we have refused requests by individual homeowners to plant trees in common areas and in easements, even when the homeowner says he/she will take care of them, because our documents decree that the HOA is responsible for maintenance in those areas.

I would worry that even a conditional approval letter could cause later legal problems if a future homeowner doesn't want to care for the trees - or if the present homeowner changes his mind. Common areas are set up by developers in an association's land plats, which are legal documents. If your covenants decree that the HOA must maintain those areas (as ours do), a judge could rule that a simple approval letter does not overrule your HOA's governing documents (or that it can't overrule them in perpetuity), and then grant the contesting homeowner's request to refuse maintenance. Then the trees are your responsibility. And Leyland Cyrpresses are notorious for falling over (shallow roots + great height).

Also, our governing documents have clear language stating that no precedent is set when a decision contrary to our governing documents is made, which would, for us, defeat that homeowner's claim of a precedent made because other homeowners were allowed to plant trees and shrubs in your common areas.

As others have said, you've got to consider the long-term consequences of decisions. Good luck!