Can I cut down a tree in my garden?

If the tree is on your land, the honest answer is usually yes, you can cut it down. It is your tree, and for most garden trees nobody’s permission is needed. What turns a straightforward job into a legal problem is not the felling itself. It is whether the tree is protected, and that is the one thing worth checking before a saw goes anywhere near it.

The short answer: usually yes

Most of the time you can fell, reduce or remove a tree in your own garden without asking a soul. There is no general law that stops a homeowner cutting down their own tree. If it is yours, on your land, and it carries no protection, you are free to have it taken down.

I say this plainly because a lot of people assume they need council permission for any tree work, and worry themselves out of a job that was always theirs to do. Around Hastings, Battle and Bexhill I fell garden trees most weeks that need no paperwork at all.

The catch is the word “protected”. A minority of garden trees carry protection you cannot see by looking at them. That is what turns “usually yes” into “check first”, and it is worth ten minutes before you commit.

Three things to check first

Before you cut, rule out three things. All three are quick, and our free checker does the first two for you.

A Tree Preservation Order (TPO). A TPO is a legal order the council puts on a specific tree or group of trees. If your tree carries one, cutting, felling, topping or lopping it without the council’s written consent is a criminal offence. The fine is unlimited, in either court, and it is charged per tree. The contractor who does the work is liable too, which is why no honest tree surgeon will touch a TPO’d tree without seeing consent first.

A conservation area. If your tree is in a conservation area, any tree with a trunk over 75mm across, measured at 1.5 metres above the ground, is protected. You cannot just cut it. You have to give the council six weeks’ written notice first. This is called a Section 211 notice. It gives the council a window to decide whether to put a TPO on the tree. If they do nothing in six weeks, you are free to proceed.

A felling licence. This one rarely bites a garden. You only need a felling licence from the Forestry Commission for larger volumes, above five cubic metres in any calendar quarter. A single garden tree, even a big one, almost never reaches that. It matters more for woodland or clearing several trees at once.

One smaller check is worth a look too. Some newer estates carry a planning condition protecting named trees, separate from any TPO, so glance at your property’s planning history.

The fastest way to clear the main two is our is my tree protected checker. Put in your postcode and it tells you whether you are in a conservation area and points you at the right council to check for a TPO. If it all comes back clear, felling a garden tree is usually straightforward. If it is protected, the paperwork is routine, and we handle it for you as part of the job.

Whose tree is it anyway

A tree belongs to whoever owns the land where the trunk comes out of the ground. Not the boundary line, not who planted it, not whose garden the branches hang over. If the trunk is on your side, it is your tree. If it straddles the boundary, it is jointly owned and you both have a say.

So you can cut down your own tree, but you cannot cut down your neighbour’s. If a neighbour’s tree overhangs your garden, you are usually allowed to trim the growth back to the boundary line, but no further, and the cuttings technically belong to them. You cannot reach over and reduce their tree because its shade bothers you. That is their call. If you are not certain whose tree it is, work it out before you cut, or a tidy garden job becomes a dispute next door.

Nesting birds and timing

Even a completely unprotected tree has one limit on it, and it is a legal one.

Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, it is an offence to damage or destroy an active bird’s nest, whether or not the tree has a TPO. Nesting season runs roughly March to August. During those months, before we take a tree down or cut a hedge hard, we check the canopy for active nests. If there is one in use, the work waits until the birds have fledged.

This is why a lot of the heavier felling happens over autumn and winter. The tree is dormant, the nests are empty, and the job is cleaner all round. If there is no rush, the colder months are usually the sensible window. There is more on seasonal timing in our guide on when to cut hedges, and the same nesting rule applies to trees.

What if it’s dead or dangerous

A dead or genuinely dangerous tree is treated differently, even when it is protected.

If a TPO’d or conservation-area tree is dead, you can still remove it, but you must give the council five working days’ written notice before the work, unless it is an emergency. If a tree poses an immediate risk of serious harm, say it has split in a storm and is about to come down on the house, you can carry out the minimum work needed to make it safe straight away, then notify the council as soon as possible afterwards.

The important word in both cases is evidence. Before anything comes down, photograph the tree, the defect, the lean or the failure. A dead tree and a tree you simply want gone look very different to a council tree officer, and the burden is on you to show which it was. We document the condition before we start, so that exemption stands up later.

The short version

• Usually yes. Your tree, your land, no permission needed for most garden trees.
• Check for a TPO. Cutting a protected tree without consent is an offence, and the fine is unlimited, per tree. The contractor is liable too.
• Check for a conservation area. Any trunk over 75mm at 1.5m is protected. Give the council six weeks’ notice (a Section 211 notice) before work.
• Felling licence. Only for large volumes (over five cubic metres a quarter). A single garden tree is almost always exempt.
• Whose tree. It belongs to whoever owns the ground the trunk grows from. Never cut a neighbour’s tree.
• Nesting birds. Even unprotected trees cannot be worked in a way that harms an active nest. Nesting season is roughly March to August.
• Dead or dangerous. Protected trees can still be dealt with under exemptions, but document the condition first.

If you are anywhere between Hastings, Battle, Bexhill, Rye and Heathfield and you are not sure whether your tree is protected, start with the is my tree protected checker, or read the fuller explainer on TPOs and Section 211 notices. For the wider picture, our guide to tree law in England sets it all in context.

If it turns out the tree is protected, that is not a wall, it is just paperwork, and it is ours to handle. Send us the address and the tree, we will check the council’s map, file any notice or TPO application needed, and price the felling once we know where we stand. Send us a note for a free quote and we will tell you straight what you are dealing with.