In this case, if the perp playing this game is caught, he can be sued for the cost of not only the wood of the tree, but the cost to replace it with the biggest tree possible (including grinding out the old stump, the equipment needed to dig the new hole for the new tree’s rootball, and transportation and planting of the tree itself). To get a large tree costs $1-2,000, never mind the outsized equipment necessary to move and plant it. So this can get quite expensive quite quickly.
Source: used to work in the industry, and had a friend who was a consultant on several cases like this, albeit it was generally malicious neighbors going after trees that weren’t on their property, because they ‘hated the leaves in the fall’ or ‘the tree was blocking their view’.
In this case, if the perp playing this game is caught, he can be sued for the cost of not only the wood of the tree, but the cost to replace it with the biggest tree possible (including grinding out the old stump, the equipment needed to dig the new hole for the new tree’s rootball, and transportation and planting of the tree itself). To get a large tree costs $1-2,000, never mind the outsized equipment necessary to move and plant it. So this can get quite expensive quite quickly.
Source: used to work in the industry, and had a friend who was a consultant on several cases like this, albeit it was generally malicious neighbors going after trees that weren’t on their property, because they ‘hated the leaves in the fall’ or ‘the tree was blocking their view’.