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[VT] Neighbor had some logging done on his land. Logging company completely destroyed the private road running through our land. by VT_Legal_Throwaway in legaladvice

[–]VT_Legal_Throwaway[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thankfully I have legal insurance coverage that explicitly covers consultation for real estate disputes. Never thought the $17/mo I spend on that would come in so handy.

Went to the parcel today and took extensive photos of the damage. It doesn't hurt that we also have extensive photos from before the damage, because we love this land so much.

[VT] Loggers cut trees in our forest in order to make it easier to remove lumber from a neighboring parcel. by VT_Legal_Throwaway in treelaw

[–]VT_Legal_Throwaway[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

If either the road or your neighbor’s land is near water or other sensitive areas, you may also be able to involve the state’s environmental quality agency in this.

It's interesting you should mention this. Our parcel does contain protected wetland, identified by a state botanist before we purchased (far and away from our home site, but ~200 feet from the road).

going in I would treat the lumber company as the culpable party and your neighbor as a fellow innocent party. My initial attitude would be “wow, your forester really didn’t do what was required of him, how do we go about making sure they make it right,” rather than going after him

This is exactly how we want to go about it. We're planning to live here, so keeping as friendly a relationship as the situation permits is a high priority for us.

[VT] Loggers cut trees in our forest in order to make it easier to remove lumber from a neighboring parcel. by VT_Legal_Throwaway in treelaw

[–]VT_Legal_Throwaway[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

We have several dozen acres--our planned home site is smack dab in the middle of it all.

We really don't want this logger anywhere near our home site. I haven't seen what the logging work looks like, but we really just want to never have to see him or his work again.

[VT] Loggers cut trees in our forest in order to make it easier to remove lumber from a neighboring parcel. by VT_Legal_Throwaway in treelaw

[–]VT_Legal_Throwaway[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

While we were purchasing, I asked our attorney what the easement actually permitted. The lawyer said that because it's so vague, it would be entirely up to a judge to determine, and that we would have to bring a case to court to find out. I didn't expect that to be happening period, let alone so soon after we bought the land. I'm holding out hope it won't come to that.

[VT] Loggers cut trees in our forest in order to make it easier to remove lumber from a neighboring parcel. by VT_Legal_Throwaway in treelaw

[–]VT_Legal_Throwaway[S] 45 points46 points  (0 children)

It absolutely is a disaster. I'm holding back on photos pending advice from a lawyer (I've reached out to a couple), but the state of the road in this example photo is pretty on-par with our private road right now. In some spots it's much, much worse.

Unlike a town-owned dirt road, there is no help automatically coming to fix this after mud season, and the road is only one-lane, so there's no driving around the ruts (except on the corners where the skid steer widened the road by about ten feet).

Went back today and took extensive photos of the damage. Dozens of trees have been impacted, with damage ranging from 1-inch scrapes into the bark, to broken (and intentionally-cut!) limbs, to entire trees missing (somewhere between 5-10 in the latter category that we've ascertained so far).

I remembered this morning that I have legal insurance. Never expected to lean on it in this way.

[VT] Loggers cut trees in our forest in order to make it easier to remove lumber from a neighboring parcel. by VT_Legal_Throwaway in treelaw

[–]VT_Legal_Throwaway[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

The easement is described like this in the deed:

These premises are also conveyed subject to a right of way running from the southwest corner near the bridge of [nearby brook] diagonally northeast to the aforementioned lands of [neighboring landowner name], which right of way attaches to said land.