Question: What do I do if a  neighbor's tree is hanging over in my yard and it is damaging my car.

The owner of the tree is NOT required to trim his tree off of the neighbor’s yard. You cannot prevent them from trimming it. You are allowed to trim or cut the neighbors tree up to your property line, provided it does not cause irreparable long term harm to the tree. They are NOT allowed to come on your property to conduct the work unless they have an easement. The power company has an easement and can enter your property to trim trees, but the easement is their property, sort of. The power company will usually inform you that they are entering your property, but they are not asking your permission. In addition, you must use know safe trimming practices to prevent further damage to the tree. For example, if your cutting killed the tree you might have a liability issue. Unsightliness is not the issue, only death of the tree. If your tree is hanging on some one else’s property, you are not required to trim it off their property. That was just the way the tree grew. You cannot prevent them from trimming it off of their property.

Update on the rental market in the mountains

Long term rentals- They are picking up and something surprising is that we are renting $1000 a month and $325 a month units. The units in the middle are having a hard time right now. For the first time owners are reduce the rent on an existing tenant in order to keep the tenant in the unit. Tenants are shopping and negotiating lower rents. Please keep this in mind as leases are expiring on your properties. In March we rented 5 properties and just in the 7 days of April we have leased 2 houses and have 4 more applications that will probably become new tenants.

Vacation Rentals-Here is a very interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about vacation rentals all over the country. This definitely applies to our area. If you can not pull this up then go to http://www.nytimes.com and then do a search for 2009/03/20 second-home owners-everyone into the rental pool.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/greathomesanddestinations/20Rent.html?fta=y

Foreclosures are now becoming a problem in the Mountains. Tenants have no rights once a home has been foreclosed. Some banks are being cooperative but not all. Today I had a phone call from a locksmith who wanted to add a lock to a property I handle. I ask why and he said that the bank wanted access to the property. I told him that the property had not been foreclosed so the bank did not own the property and had no right to change the locks. His boss called later and tried to get me to allow the lock change. I still represent the owner and have a fiduciary responsibility to protect his interests. I told the boss NO!!

Question:  If the owner/landlord loses the home I rent to foreclosure, what happens to my lease?

Your Professional Landlord's Answer: Unfortunately your lease is no longer valid. The bank now owns the property. In this day and time, the banks are trying to work with the tenants and allow them to stay in the home.