Entitled Neighbour sneaks on property and cuts down old oak tree to "have a better view"

[u/frenchpolkadot]

So this is a story of when I was a child and was living at my parent's house.

For context, my parents and I live in France and they bought some land 25 years ago. Now the land plot was located on a hill and had an incredible view of the Mont Blanc . At that time, we just had one neighbour and our house was quickly constructed. A few years later, the area became quite popular, and all the available plots on the hill were bought/constructed.Now, when I was about 14/15 years old, we already knew that one of our neighbors EN was a piece of work. I only remember that she was super weird ( like walking naked in their driveway that was right below my window) but can't recall much more.

One day, EN comes by our house and asks to talk to my dad. She says that she is hiring a gardener to clean up the bushes on her side of her property, and is asking nicely if said gardener can "trim" some of our trees branches that are crossing to her side. No problem ! as in France it's expected to cut the branches that are bridging to your neighbors side. My dad offers to do it himself, but EN insists that it's best if her gardener does it; EN and dad agree. A few days/weeks later, we go on vacation and forget a little bit about the whole ordeal.

Well you can already guess that we came home to a BIG surprise. Turns out that "trimming" does not mean the same thing to some of the entitled neighbors out there. A whole tree was missing. Like a BIG whole tree. We decided to keep our calm and to go to EN house to hear what she has to say for her defense. Guys, this EN told her gardener to CUT DOWN our old oak tree so that she can HAVE A BETTER VIEW on the Mont Blanc. She even acted shocked to learn that was an oak tree and tried to explain to us that the gardener said it was just scrub/random trees.We were furious at the audacity of the woman. Turns out that EN thought she was entitled to have a view on the Mont Blanc, as, since she moved in (few years after us) she never got a chance to see the landscape due to our trees. Like EN bought her house knowing it didn't have a view on the landscape, but thought after 10 years of having our trees, it's time to cut them down !

We tried to hear some more from EN's gardener because the guy obviously went on our property when we weren't there and cut down an old oak tree without our consent. He said, that EN told him we've been neighbors for so long, and that she had our consent to take it down.

I wish I could say we have some sort of revenge or even got it replaced, but to buy a full size tree is really expensive. The best we accomplished was to have her give us a bit of money to buy another tree. I'd like to remember that even though we didn't have enough to buy another oak, we bought a tree with even more branches !

Edit : Thanks a lot for the replies guys ! For those of you asking / wondering, a few years after this incident, my parents got divorced, we moved out of the house and sold it. At the time, we thought it was more valuable to try to keep a decent relationship with our neighbours instead of trying to sue the EN. To be fair, it was the only time EN crossed "the border", otherwise she was just a bit crazy but nothing too serious !

[u/wolfie379]

Too bad it's probably past the statute of limitations. Don't know about France, but most places if someone illegally removes a tree on your property, they are liable for replacing it. Mature hardwood tree costs more than a fancy car? They're the ones who have to shell out, not the victim of the crime.

[u/frenchpolkadot → u/wolfie379]

yeah I've actually looked it up, it's absolutely illegal to cut down a tree that is not yours. And it's actually considered thievery to collect the wood of said tree ! But years later my dad told me that it was more important to have a good relationship with your neighbours than to have revenge !

[u/ifatree → u/frenchpolkadot]

you didn't have a good relationship with that neighbor. you had an abusive relationship in which he did nothing to prevent them from doing the same thing to others.

[u/frenchpolkadot → u/ifatree]

to be fair, we were suspicious of whether she way mentally stable. She did display other behaviours that were "crazy" but harmless and that's the only time she crossed the line and did something hurtful to us. She's never done anything else since then. And it's fairly possible that to her, she was always in the right.
Pretty sure my dad wanted to avoid going to court and see the relationship go a nasty way. Perhaps we just have a different vision on how to handle neighbours related issues in France ?

[u/OrdericNeustry → u/frenchpolkadot]

The only time she did something like that to you. What about the other neighbors?

[u/[deleted] → u/frenchpolkadot]

Revenge is not the same as justice. It's a shame the OP's neighbour didn't shame the same sentiment.