I received this email from a old friend of mine who lives in the PNW Here is his email
>Hi everyone. It has been a stressful day. I contracted with a tree removal service to remove 16 trees, one on my driveway and 15 in the corner of my wedge shaped property.
I wanted to keep two Austrian Black Pines and a Colorado Blue Spruce which has been extremely slow growing.
We had a verbal handshake agreement, no written contract.
I agreed to pay $3000 cash for the removal of the trees along with the branches and wood.
The boss was not there at all during the first day.
The next day I took Lucky to the backyard to lock her in a kennel to make her safe from the falling wood.
I was surprised to see that the two Austrian Black Pines had been removed.
I was shocked and angry. I told the tree removal people: what the heck happened? The boss kept changing his story throughout the day. First he says that he thought I wanted all the trees in the backyard removed.
If that was the case why didn’t his workers cut down the little Colorado Blue Spruce?
Later one of his workers apologized to me for cutting down one of the Austrian Black Pines. Apparently the boss was confused and thought that I had wanted the larger Pine closer to the house removed and said that removing the Pine in the corner was his error.
I said: No, that I wanted to retain all three trees. He asked me why I had pointed out the larger tree to him. I told him that I knew that I would have to remove the tree twenty years from now, because it would be dangerously large by then, but we both agreed that the three trees to be saved would not fall in a windstorm.
I later told the boss that I would not pay him because his crew had removed two trees that I wanted, at that point he started to whistle up his crew to drop everything and leave the jobsite half finished.
He changed his mind and decided to complete the job and told me that tomorrow he would file a lien against my property.
I told him that I thought the value of two live medium sized Austrian Black Pines were worth $15000 in landscaping value and that if he wanted to play rough and go to the courts I would win a larger judgement than $3000.
I will wait to see if the other shoe drops, because if he has his attorneys file a lien against my home, I will seek a judgement for his removing my two beautiful trees.
Fortunately I have some digital pictures of the trees from two years ago. So please, if you can learn a lesson or two from my grief, please do!
Oh, he did not mark the trees to be removed with flourescent orange paint which is industry practice.
I suppose that his crew does not make mistakes. At least that is what one of his crew said. What an idiot! So this is it: no written contract, no supervision, no paint indicating the trees to be removed, and no apology!
He does get to sell three trailer load of firewood to whoever will buy. Oh yeah!
I would appreciate your feedback even if you do not agree or sympathize with me.<<
here is what I sent him
>>I both agree and sympathize with you. But…
Do you have a written contract of the work to be performed?
If not you should. Because otherwise it will become he said she said in court.
You have to have EVIDENCE. Evidence comes in the form of a written agreement or perhaps a witnesses statement.
In the future make sure of 4 things when anyone does any work for you
Have a written contract with all work to be performed. It should be as complete and precise as possible.
Make sure the contractor is licensed. That way you can track his work record through the better business bureau.
Get references ask the contractor to provide references and even past and present clients phone numbers so you can call them and see what kind of work this guy does.
Finally and most importantly, make sure he is insured. If he isnt and a employee gets injured they can come after you and go for your homeowners insurance. Plus his insurance would pay for the mistake he made on your property.
Ive learned a lot out here in SoCal the land of lawsuits <<
what would you tell him?

Edited 11/29/2007 12:47 pm by Sancho
Replies
EDIT THAT POST AND SOMEONE MIGHT READ IT!
I didnt' read it all either because I knew what the gist was before I finished the first sentence. The onus for providing a written contract most likely lies on the contractors shoulders. He has the most to lose if this is taken to the system to work out.I know a guy that won 100k in a lawsuit involving two large oak trees. FKA Blue (eyeddevil)
Thanks Blue. I didn't really know how to handle this situation other than the advice I gave him. I will edit it change it to double spacing to make it more readable. I just cut and pasted it from the email I received
why are you yelling?
Trying to emphasize that any long continuous sentence on a post makes it hard to read. FWIW Breaktime dosen't allow me to paragraph a post, maybe you have the same problem?, sorry for yelling.
No prob bro ..It did look like one long babble :>)
thanks for telling me. I dont think I would of gotten the responses if I left it the way it was.
Hit the return twice to paragraph it. FKA Blue (eyeddevil)
Appreciate the suggestion, but none of these things work, I only have the prob. on Breaktime. 2 1/2 years ago Breaktime said they would e-mail me in 2 days with the fix, still waiting! :-/
One item that stays in my truck and toolbag at all times is Surveyors Flagging tape. I find all kinds of uses for it.
In this case, bright orange tape on the trees that were NOT to be cut would have saved the day. Less than a dollars worth of tape.
I often lay the flagging toward the top of trenches as I'm backfilling - electrical, plumbing, whatever. When anyone is digging for any reason, if they start seeing pieces of bright orange plastic, thry're going to stop and investigate.
Greg
Most common thing that I have seen is to use the marking paint to ID the trees.Usually an orange X for those to be removed..
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Generally when I am have a space cut, there are far more to remove than to save.So I use green marking tape to mark the ones that need to stay and go over it with they guys actually doing the ccutting about three times before I leave the site. I have also driven stakes to surrond a clump of trees with green tape. If onlt a few are being cut, then I do like you and spray paint to mark them.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Having a contract might not have made much difference unless it specifically identified the trees to be left behind.
The real solution(s) would have been to:
That's all hindsight, however, 'cause the trees can't be replanted. Some amount of price reduction would certainly be appropriate, but it's probably unrealistic to expect $15k.
I've been using the same tree service for years, for trimming, inoculating elm trees and for removal. The first time they came to my house they made a map of the entire lot, showing where each tree was located along with its species, and assigned a number to each tree. If a tree gets cut down they update the map. It's worked out great, as I can just call them up and say tree #3 needs to be trimmed, or whatever.
Thanks for sharing this. Too often, things are verbal when they should be written.
I think people just get in a hurry and cross their finger and hope things are going to work out.
Oregon requires a written contract and lien notice given first if the job is over one grand, the contractor would lose in the builders board for that right away and be given a fine for not doing that, Tree work falls under contracting, I cant imagine turning my guys loose without marking on the other hand i have heard people say there Grandfather planted a tree or bush and say it was damaged to get out of paying
Now that he has allowed workers onto his property with no contract and the damage has been done, the only advise to give him is to call a lawyer and get out his checkbook.
To pay the lawyer.
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
nooooo ..... no contract ..no legal right to work ... deny the claim, if the contractor makes one
and , yes ..he's out the trees ..
Ditto Jon's comment about the verbal contract.
So what if the contractor sues the property owner and claims that they had a verbal contract? From what I understand, a verbal contract is enforceable, although of course the specific contract terms may be a little hazy.So if the contractor sues him the owner will have to perjure himself to deny the claim of a contract.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
I can't really offer advice, because you are not the 'principal' of the discussion. Your 'friend' is using you as a filter. Like with computers, GIGO.
The pricing seems way low, and the operation seems half-baked. I question the legal standing of the "contractor." Sounds more like a trunk-slamming gypsy to me. It's very possible a scam was arranged, specifically to get those two trees.
How many times are we cautioned about "contractors" who just "happen" to be available to offer their services? How often have we been cautioned to check licenses, etc.? For that matter, how many times have contractors been cautioned to "get it in writing?"
Put your anger aside, eat the loss, and consider it tuition in life.
Lesson learned: When anyone is on your property doing "irreversable" work like tree clearing or working near a property line, take a day away from whatever else you may think may be more important and BE THERE.
Runnerguy
Hey,
Do you think that the guy who brought out the crew was the same guy who wrote the contract?
More important, do you think the guy who brought the crew could read a word of english?
In the PNW the major tree companies pay 40% of contract price to the crew leader, who is ostensibly an 'independent contractor'. In my case I had 5 large firs and a large cedar removed. The kid who wrote the contract was new, gave me an estimate, so I immediately wrote a check for him to take back to the office. Crew leader took one look, decided he didn't want to do it, I put the contract under his nose, realized he couldn't read.
Told the crew leader I'd have coffee here when they are all back tomorrow. They were back the next day, and drank my coffee. The owner asked, you knew that kid was new? I told him, seemed young, wrote me a contract, I paid, I expect performance.
Got it.
skipj
I cant say for sure but that seems like a very low price for tree removal. If it is he probably doesnt have any GL/WC. I dont know that area though.
Here in the land of $15/carps it cost at LEAST a grand to remove one tree. Even more in Dallas as my BIL up there is a tree guy.
Where there's a will, there are 500 relatives
About a month or 2 Sphere had a thread on getting some trees down.He almost pulled the trigger on the contract. Ended up going with someone else that not only made him feel more comforatable about their ability to do the job, but was also much cheaper..
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
10-4 on that.
I saved a bucket of $$$ and got a truly excellent job. I think me being HERE and staying outta the guys way made a difference, I asked a few questions, it was explained to me in way I could understand, and I didn't get so involved that I could distract or harm anyone, but was available if a "call" needed to be made, by me.
Oh, I had no contract whatsoever with the final guy, just a verbal "They do X, I pay Y" and proof of insurance.
Pretty much how I like a customer to be, available for decisions that may hinge on thier future plans, but not underfoot pestering me.
In this guys instance ( the OP) I'd say he Fu'd by not being there onsite..but obviously, he shouldn't have HAD to be there. Maybe just bad luck, he picked the wrong tree outfit for his job.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
"If you want something you've never had, do something you've never done"