Boundary & Easement  ·  October 22, 2026

Neighbor Cut Down Your Tree? California Damages Explained

The short answer

If someone cuts down, removes or damages a tree on your land without permission, California does not limit you to the value of the tree. Civil Code section 3346 and Code of Civil Procedure section 733 multiply the damages:

• At least double the actual damages, even if the cutting was an honest mistake.
• Up to triple where the conduct was willful and malicious, in the court's discretion.
• Actual damages only in two narrow situations: wood taken by highway officers to repair a public road or bridge, and a trespass committed in reliance on a licensed surveyor's survey that placed the line in the wrong spot, where the survey was procured by the defendant or the defendant's principal, lessor or immediate predecessor in title.

"Actual damages" can be more than the tree's lumber value. Courts have allowed the cost of restoring the landscape, aesthetic loss, and, for people living on the property, annoyance and discomfort.

The statute has its own deadline: an action for these damages "must be commenced within five years from the date of the trespass." (Civ. Code, § 3346, subd. (c).) Because a defendant may argue that a shorter period applies to part of the claim, the cautious course is to act within one year of the cutting.

These disputes can arise on hillside lots, where a view, a fire-clearance project or a new fence brings a tree trimmer to the property line.

What damages can I get if my neighbor cut down my tree?

The statute

Section 3346(a): "For wrongful injuries to timber, trees, or underwood upon the land of another, or removal thereof, the measure of damages is three times such sum as would compensate for the actual detriment, except that where the trespass was casual or involuntary, or that the defendant in any action brought under this section had probable cause to believe that the land on which the trespass was committed was his own or the land of the person in whose service or by whose direction the act was done, the measure of damages shall be twice the sum as would compensate for the actual detriment, . . ." The subdivision goes on to limit damages to the actual detriment where wood was taken by the authority of highway officers to repair a public highway or bridge.

Code of Civil Procedure section 733 makes anyone who "cuts down or carries off any wood or underwood, tree, or timber, or girdles or otherwise injures any tree or timber on the land of another person," without lawful authority, liable for "treble the amount of damages which may be assessed therefor."

How courts read the two together

The courts read the two statutes together. In Drewry v. Welch (1965) 236 Cal.App.2d 159, the court described three tiers: willful and malicious trespass, where the court may award treble damages and must award at least double; casual or involuntary trespass, where double damages are mandatory; and trespass under authority, where only actual damages are recovered.

Later decisions hold that trebling is a judgment about the defendant's culpability, not an automatic result. In Ostling v. Loring (1994) 27 Cal.App.4th 1731, a default judgment case, the court held that allegations of malice plus the defendant's default were not enough to treble; with no evidence of culpability, the double award was the measure. In Salazar v. Matejcek (2016) 245 Cal.App.4th 634, the court affirmed trebling where a neighbor built a road and other works on a rural parcel without surveying or giving notice and destroyed about 225 trees; it treated trebling as discretionary, quoting the long-standing rule from Drewry that the treble damages provisions are "permissive and not mandatory."

Honest mistakes still cost double

A neighbor who honestly but mistakenly believed the tree was on their side has not acted willfully and maliciously, so the case moves from treble to double, not to zero. The statute itself lists "probable cause to believe that the land on which the trespass was committed was his own" as a reason for the double measure.

The survey defense in subdivision (b) is narrow and has two conditions, both required: the defendant, or the defendant's principal, lessor or immediate predecessor in title, procured the survey, and the survey was made by a licensed land surveyor. When both are met and the survey misplaced the line, damages are limited to the actual detriment.

The neighbor's tree trimmer

The person who did the cutting is often a hired crew. That does not necessarily protect the neighbor who hired them. In Rony v. Costa (2012) 210 Cal.App.4th 746, a homeowner paid a day laborer to clear branches; the worker went over the fence onto the adjoining lot and made 32 cuts to a Monterey cypress. The homeowner was held liable for the worker's conduct, and the trial court doubled the damages.

Not every tree injury qualifies

In Scholes v. Lambirth Trucking Co. (2020) 8 Cal.5th 1094, the California Supreme Court held that section 3346 does not provide enhanced damages for trees injured by a negligently spread fire. The statutes are aimed at direct injury to trees on the land of another, the classic timber trespass. Fire victims have other remedies, including the fire liability statutes in the Health and Safety Code beginning at section 13007.

That reasoning matters for a frequent neighbor scenario: work done entirely on the neighbor's own side of the line, such as trenching that cuts the roots of your tree. A defendant who never set foot on your land can be expected to argue the multiplier does not apply. The claim may still exist in negligence or nuisance.

No double-dipping with punitive damages

Because the multiplier is itself punitive, courts have held a plaintiff should not receive both multiplied damages and punitive damages under Civil Code section 3294 for the same conduct. (Baker v. Ramirez (1987) 190 Cal.App.3d 1123.)

How is the value of a tree measured?

There is no single formula. As the court put it in Kallis v. Sones (2012) 208 Cal.App.4th 1274, "There is no single fixed and inflexible rule for determining the measure of damages for injury to trees."

Diminution in value, or restoration cost. The usual starting point for damage to land is the drop in the property's value. That can understate the loss when a mature tree is gone but the lot is still worth about the same. Heninger v. Dunn (1980) 101 Cal.App.3d 858 held that diminution in value is not an absolute limit: where the owner has a reason personal to the owner for restoring the original condition, reasonable restoration costs may be awarded, even if they exceed the drop in market value, as long as the cost is reasonable in relation to the damage and the value of the land. In Salazar the court affirmed $67,500 in restoration cost, finding it reasonable even assuming the 10-acre parcel was worth only $75,000.

Value of the trees themselves. Heninger also recognized that damages may be measured by the value of the trees and undergrowth. Arborists commonly appraise trees, and in Rony the court affirmed a valuation of the cypress plus $15,000 for lost aesthetics, shade and character.

Annoyance and discomfort. In Fulle v. Kanani (2017) 7 Cal.App.5th 1305, a neighbor's tree trimmer entered the plaintiff's yard without permission and cut eucalyptus trees and a black walnut. The court held that annoyance and discomfort damages are part of the "actual detriment" that the statutory multiplier applies to. Fulle also recognized that those damages generally belong to a person in personal occupancy of the property.

Attorney fees are generally not recoverable. No general statute awards fees in tree cases. Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.9 awards fees for trespass on land under cultivation or used or intended for raising livestock, which does not describe most residential yards. And in Rony, the court reversed a fee award under Code of Civil Procedure section 1029.8 because that statute reaches the unlicensed worker, not the homeowner who hired him.

Who owns a tree on the property line?

Trunk location decides. Civil Code section 833: "Trees whose trunks stand wholly upon the land of one owner belong exclusively to him, although their roots grow into the land of another." Section 834: "Trees whose trunks stand partly on the land of two or more coterminous owners, belong to them in common."

Branches and roots crossing the line do not change ownership. The trunk does.

A shared tree cannot be removed by one owner. Kallis v. Sones involved a 70-foot Aleppo pine in Los Angeles whose trunk straddled the property line, with 41 percent of the stump on the plaintiffs' side. The defendants had it cut down. The court held that, because the tree was owned in common, neither owner could remove it without the other's consent. It also declined to reduce the damages to 41 percent of the tree's value, given the tree's size and canopy and its value to the plaintiffs, and affirmed a doubled award that included restoration costs.

If the tree is near the line, a survey before anyone cuts is worth the cost for both sides. Our boundary dispute article explains how surveys, fences and long use interact.

Can I trim my neighbor's tree that hangs over my yard?

Branches: to the line, and carefully. In Bonde v. Bishop (1952) 112 Cal.App.2d 1, overhanging limbs of a neighbor's decaying oak that damaged a garage were held a nuisance, and the court approved cutting back the overhanging limbs, but only to the boundary line. Civil Code section 3479 defines a nuisance to include anything that is "an obstruction to the free use of property, so as to interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property."

Roots: reasonableness, not an absolute right. In Booska v. Patel (1994) 24 Cal.App.4th 1786, a neighbor hired a contractor who excavated along the line and cut the roots of the plaintiffs' Monterey pine, and the plaintiffs later had the tree removed. The trial court ruled the neighbor had an absolute right to cut encroaching roots. The Court of Appeal reversed, said "This is not the law," and held the right to remove encroaching roots is tempered by a duty to act reasonably.

Stay on your side. None of these cases allows entering the neighbor's land to trim. The multiplied awards in Rony and Fulle both began with a trimmer who crossed onto the tree owner's property without permission.

Putting it together:

1. Trim only what is over your side of the line.
2. Do not cut so much of the canopy or root zone that the tree is killed or destabilized.
3. Do not go onto the neighbor's property without written permission.
4. Hire a licensed, insured tree professional, and consider asking an arborist before cutting major roots.
5. Tell the neighbor in writing before significant work.
6. Check whether the tree is a protected species under your city's ordinance before cutting roots or major limbs.

Protected trees in Los Angeles

The City of Los Angeles regulates certain native trees and shrubs regardless of whose they are. Under the Protected Tree and Shrub Ordinance (Ordinance No. 186873, effective February 4, 2021, amending Los Angeles Municipal Code sections 46.00 through 46.04 and 46.06, among others), protected species include indigenous oaks other than scrub oak, Southern California black walnut, western sycamore and California bay, measuring four inches or more in cumulative diameter at four and one-half feet above the ground, and the ordinance added Mexican elderberry and toyon. Removing or relocating one requires a permit from the Board of Public Works, and "removal" includes acts that cause the tree to die, such as root damage. The ordinance is enforced by the city, and we have not found a private damages remedy in it, but a violation can affect building permits for the property, and the tree's protected status may bear on the cost of restoring it. Other cities in the region have their own ordinances.

The deadline to sue

Five years from the trespass for damages under section 3346. Subdivision (c): "Any action for the damages specified by subdivisions (a) and (b) of this section must be commenced within five years from the date of the trespass."

Three years from the injury for ordinary trespass and injury to real property under Code of Civil Procedure section 338(b), the period that governed the fire claim in Scholes once section 3346 was held inapplicable. Claims framed in negligence or nuisance, such as damage from root cutting done on the neighbor's own side, may fall under that shorter period.

A defendant may also argue that the one-year period of Code of Civil Procedure section 340(a), for "an action upon a statute for a penalty or forfeiture," applies to the enhanced portion of the award. That section yields where the statute "prescribes a different limitation," and section 3346(c) prescribes one. We have not found a published decision applying section 340 to section 3346 or section 733. The safe course is to treat the earliest arguable deadline as the real one: one year from the cutting.

Our broader statute of limitations guide covers the related property deadlines, and how long you have to sue over an encroachment addresses structures over the line.

What to do if it already happened

1. Photograph everything right away: stumps, cut faces, debris, the line, the view before and after if you have older photos.
2. Preserve the evidence. Do not grind stumps or haul away wood until it has been documented and, if needed, examined.
3. Get a survey if the tree's location relative to the line is in any doubt. In a section 834 case it is decisive.
4. Get an arborist's appraisal and a restoration estimate from a landscape professional. Those are the building blocks of actual damages.
5. Identify who did the work and who hired them. Get the contractor's name and license number.
6. Write down what you heard and saw, including any warnings you gave and how the neighbor responded. Whether the cutting was willful affects whether damages are doubled or tripled.
7. Calendar the deadlines from the date of the cutting, including the conservative one-year date.

Because the multiplier applies to the arborist's numbers, both sides have reason to evaluate the case early. Cases that do not resolve are tried like other boundary cases, with surveys and expert testimony. Our boundary and easement practice handles these disputes for owners on both sides.

Common questions

This article is general information about California law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Statutes and case law change, and how they apply depends on the specific facts. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes. Robert B. Mobasseri, State Bar No. 193193, ROMO Law Group, Encino, California.