What should the HOA board do when an owner cuts down or tops trees on common area without permission?

By OurHOA · General information · Revised October 19, 2026

What an HOA board does when an owner cuts or tops common area trees: photos, an arborist appraisal, the notice your state requires, charging the owner, and replanting.

Part of the HOA board handbook: vendors, projects and upkeep.

The short answer

Treat it as damage to association property, not as a landscaping disagreement. Depending on how your community holds title, the trees belong to the association or to all owners in common, and the owner who cut them had no more right to do it than to knock down the pool fence. The board's job is to record what happened while the evidence is fresh, get a certified arborist to put a dollar value on the loss, send the violation notice your state and your documents require, and then charge the owner for replacement if the declaration allows it. Most of these cases start with a view. An owner wants to see the lake, the fairway or the sunset, and a row of trees on the common strip behind the lot is in the way. Some hire a tree crew. Others do it themselves with a pole saw over a weekend. The board usually finds out after the fact, when a neighbor calls. Rules vary by state and by your governing documents, and this guide is general education, not legal advice. Talk to the association's attorney before you file suit or post a large charge to an owner's account.

The first week: record the damage before anyone cleans up

Go out the same day if you can. Stumps, cut limbs and sawdust tell you a lot, and they disappear once the owner's crew or the landscaper hauls them off. Take dated photos of every stump and every topped trunk from several angles, with a tape measure laid across the cut for scale. Measure each stump's diameter. If a tree was topped rather than removed, photograph the full height of what is left and the cut ends. Then find photos that show the trees before the cut: the reserve study, old newsletters, the county's aerial imagery, or street-level imagery history. Mark the locations on the plat so nobody later argues over whether the trees stood on the lot or on common area. If the boundary is unclear, a survey settles it, and it is worth paying for before you accuse anyone. Write down who reported it and what they saw, including any tree company name on a truck. Do not confront the owner on the spot, and do not post about it in the neighborhood social media group. Keep it in the board's hands.

Get an arborist to value the loss

A board's guess at the cost of a tree will not hold up if the owner disputes the charge. Hire an ISA certified arborist, ideally one who does tree appraisals, and ask for a written report. Kansas State University's extension bulletin on ornamental tree evaluation describes the most widely used method, from the Council of Tree and Landscape Appraisers' Guide for Plant Appraisal. For a tree small enough to replace, the value is the cost of the largest locally available tree of the same or a similar species, with delivery, planting, staking, aftercare and any survival guarantee included. For a tree too large to replace, appraisers use the trunk formula, which starts from a base price per square inch of trunk and adjusts for species, condition and location. A row of mature live oaks or ponderosa pines can appraise for far more than the board expects. For topped trees, ask the arborist whether each one can be saved. Penn State Extension explains why topping does lasting harm: the cuts open the tree to decay it cannot stop, the regrowth is a cluster of weakly attached sprouts that break in wind and snow, and a topped tree has to be topped again every few years or come down. The report should say which trees need removal, what replanting will cost, and what the association loses when mature trees are replaced with young ones. Get the arborist's fee in writing before the visit.

Send the notice your state requires

Before the association charges the owner anything, follow the notice rules in your state statute and your own enforcement policy. In Texas, Property Code section 209.006 requires written notice by certified mail before an association charges an owner for property damage or levies a fine. The notice must describe the damage, state the amount due, and tell the owner they may request a hearing on or before the 30th day after it was mailed. Section 209.006(h) lists property damage, including the removal or alteration of landscape, as an example of a violation that cannot be cured, so no cure period applies, but the hearing right still does. In Florida, section 720.305(2) requires at least 14 days' written notice and a hearing within 90 days, before a committee of at least three members who are not officers, directors or employees, before the board can impose a fine or suspension. Fines are capped at $100 per violation and $1,000 in total for a continuing violation unless the governing documents say otherwise. In Colorado, section 38-33.3-209.5 caps the total fine for a violation that does not threaten health or safety at $500 and requires notice by certified mail, return receipt requested. Those rules came from HB22-1137, effective August 10, 2022. A fine and the cost of the trees are separate things. The fine answers the violation. The charge for the loss is what it costs to put the common area back, and whether the association can add it to the owner's account depends on the declaration.

Charge the owner for the loss and replant

Read the declaration's maintenance and damage article before you send a bill. Many declarations let the association charge an owner for damage to common area caused by the owner, their tenants or their contractors, and collect it like an assessment. If yours does, the board can adopt a motion and post the amount to the account after the notice and any hearing. If it does not, the remedy is a demand letter and, if the owner refuses, a lawsuit. Some states raise the stakes. California Civil Code section 3346 sets damages at three times the actual loss for wrongful injury to trees on another's land, or twice the loss when the trespass was casual or involuntary, and the suit must be filed within five years. Texas, Florida and Colorado have no HOA rule like that, so your attorney will work from general property damage law. Here is notice wording the board can adapt: 'On March 8, trees on the common area behind 412 Heron Way were cut without the association's approval. A certified arborist valued the loss at $14,600, including removal of two trees that cannot recover and replanting with 3-inch caliper replacements. Under Article 7 of the Declaration, the board has charged this amount to your account. You may request a hearing in writing within 30 days of the date this notice was mailed.' Replant even if the owner has not paid. A bare strip invites the next owner to cut, and the association can recover the cost later. Plant in fall or early spring, and put the new trees on the landscaper's watering schedule for the first two summers.

A sample timeline

Day 1: a director visits, takes photos and measurements, and pulls before images. Days 2 to 7: the board orders a survey if the boundary is in doubt and gets an arborist quote. Weeks 2 to 3: the arborist inspects and delivers a written valuation. Week 3: the board meets, reviews the report, and votes on the notice and the amount. Week 4: the notice goes out by certified mail, or by whatever method your state requires. Weeks 5 to 8: the hearing, if the owner asks for one, and a written decision. Weeks 8 to 12: the charge posts to the account, or the attorney sends a demand letter. Next planting season: replacement trees go in. A sample motion: 'Move to adopt the arborist's valuation of $14,600 for the trees removed from common area lot C, to send notice to the owner of 412 Heron Way as the declaration and state law require, and to authorize replanting at a cost not to exceed $9,000 from the operating budget, to be recovered from the owner.'

Mistakes boards make, and how to prevent the next one

The most common mistake is letting it go because the trees are already gone. Every owner on that row now knows a view costs nothing. The second is charging a number the board made up instead of one an arborist wrote down, which hands the owner an easy win at the hearing. The third is skipping the certified mail or the hearing offer, which in Texas can undo the whole charge. Some boards also accuse the wrong household before a survey confirms where the lot line runs. Prevention is cheap. Mark the common area boundary where it matters, with small posts or a mowing edge. Adopt a written tree policy that says no one may prune, top or remove a common area tree without written board approval, and mail it to owners whose lots back up to wooded strips. Give owners who want a view a lawful path: a request form, an arborist's opinion on selective thinning, and approved work by an insured contractor at the owner's expense. Our guide on what to do when the power company wants to trim trees on HOA common area covers utility crews, and our guide on handling an owner encroaching on HOA common area covers fences, sheds and gardens that creep past the lot line.

Sources

These guides are general education for HOA boards and residents, not legal, tax, or financial advice. Rules vary by state and by your community's governing documents - check with a professional for your situation.

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