Maryland property owners are limited to self-help when dealing with plants encroaching on their properties. This is not legal advice.
Have a neighbor who has planted bamboo or another invasive plant species near your shared property line and now that plant has started encroaching on your property? What can you do in this situation? Maryland has only one decision discussing damage from plants growing on a neighbor’s property. In Melnick v. C.S.X. Corp., the Court of Appeals of Maryland limited landowners to self-help to remove invasive plant species from growing on your property. The courts in Maryland have found that “it is undesirable to categorize living trees, plants, roots, or vines as a “nuisance” to be abated. Consequently, we decline to impose liability upon an adjoining landowner for the “natural processes and cycles” of trees, plants, roots, and vines.” (Melnick, 520-521). Self-help means it will be up to you to remove the roots, limbs, vines, and other plant debris and not the neighbor who planted the invasive plant species. A neighbor cannot seek damages in court for the damages caused by the invasive plant species.
Melnick involved a landowner whose property included a warehouse near a shared common boundary with a railroad right-of-way. The right-of-way contained a tree with limbs growing over Melnick’s property and tree roots and other plant life which encroached on his property, causing damage to his warehouse. Melnick had tried self–help, but that had been unsuccessful. Melnick brought an action for trespass, negligence, and nuisance seeking damages from the railroad.
The court found state courts around the country dealing with this issue had taken a variety of paths. In looking at the options, the court decided to take the same approach as Massachusetts courts, which limit a neighboring landowner complaining of issues from encroaching vegetation to self-help. The court rejected other states’ approaches because those approaches required a court to distinguish between natural vegetation versus artificial vegetation, natural vegetation versus noxious vegetation, or vegetation causing harm other than casting shade or dropping leaves, flowers, or fruits. These other states’ views could potentially create a large influx of disputes for the court. As the court pointed out, “We have gotten along very well in Maryland, for over 350 years, without authorizing legal actions of this type by neighbor against neighbor.” (Melnick, 320).
In a more recent court decision, a property owner in a homeowners association (HOA) brought a lawsuit against the HOA and the company managing the HOA for tree limbs overhanging the property owner’s carport from the HOA’s neighboring park. The Court of Special Appeals of Maryland pointed out that the property owner was limited in Maryland to self-help and could not sue to force the HOA to trim back trees overhanging the carport from the park (Warshanna v. Hickory Hollow Cmty. Ass’n).
In Maryland, the courts have limited a neighboring landowner to self-help in the cases of invasive species on the neighboring landowner’s property. Although Maryland has had no court case dealing with an invasive species, Maryland’s courts seem to be limiting all plant overgrowth cases to self-help, meaning a neighboring landowner will bear the burden of stopping overgrowth on his/her property. The neighboring landowner will have to cut back roots, remove bamboo/plant life on their property, cut back tree limbs themselves, etc., to keep their property from being damaged by the overgrowth. University of Maryland Extension’s Home & Garden Information Center provides resources, for example, on how to control bamboo.
By Paul Goeringer, Extension Legal Specialist, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Maryland
References
Melnick v. C.S.X Corp., 312 Md. 511 (1988).
The University of Maryland Extension. Home & Garden Information Center: Bamboo (last visited, March 28, 2018).
Warshanna v. Hickory Hollow Cmty. Ass’n, No. 2056, 2016 WL 181614 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. Jan. 12, 2016).
Oh, I have had to testify for a few clients about this sort of thing, particularly bamboo! ICK!
I wonder what happens when/if your “self-help” of the overgrowth damages, disfigures or kills your neighbors parent plant.
Leave alone. When its on their side, their problem. I had a large branch from a neighbors oak tree lying on my roof. 12 feet or more. I had it cut down and the neighbor nearly had a stroke. He’s still pissed but I live in Florida so hey what do you expect?
One of my neighbors has an invasive grapevine that is coming over our fence and threatening our dogwood tree and other bushes. He refuses to let us come over our fence (which is 1 foot from his property line to cut down the grapevine. This is different from the Maryland case law since the self-help cannot be achieved owing to the fact that he has threatened us if we attempt to do this. What does anyone suggest? Thanks.
Im in the state of Maryland, I have a neighbor with approximately 4500 square feet of bamboo from an aerial shot I got from Google maps which is damaging my fence and encroaching on my property. The fence has a horizontal measurement of 140 feet across. All being destroyed by thick “Rambo 3″southeast Asian bamboo. The fence has fallen down in certain segments. And is sprouting new shoots on my property every spring. Who is liable in the state of Maryland to resolve this issue? What can I do?
I have the same issue.
As the article states, it will be up to you to remove the plant material that’s on your property. We have information on what you can do to remove and contain bamboo, including instructions on how to install a barrier. https://extension.umd.edu/resource/containing-and-removing-bamboo