An Act of God - A Tale of a Falling Tree & Your Insurance

Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Chris Berger and it’s time for Berger Point.

You know, sometimes we talk about an act of God. So, say your car is parked outside, a tree falls on it from your yard, tree falls on it — on your roof, which is your car.

Well, generally that’s considered an Act of God and insurance will cover it.

However, one of my pet peeves is when you go and you look at houses and recently I was out with a client and we were looking at a property — I was walking near the property line and I could clearly see that this tree was rotted. It was going to fall.

And when it does fall, it will fall into the property that my client was purchasing.

Well, you can talk to the neighbor. You can send them a nice email.

But just by doing that, you are putting them on notice and that in a court of law, that will stand in your favor should the tree fall onto your property.

Now, again, most of the time when a tree falls down on your property, the current owner will clean it up.

It’s putting that notice out — that absolves you, the homeowner, current homeowner, of the cleanup.

Let me show you an example of exactly what I’m talking about.

If you can’t see the property line, it’s clearly behind the brush, and that tree is on the neighbor’s property.

Well, again, because that tree Is hanging over on this property.

The property owner right here is responsible for the cleanup.

However, in advance, if they discussed it with the neighbor and said, listen, you have to take that tree down because it’s going to come down.

Then that responsibility would be the neighbor on the other side of the line.

You know, I always enjoy wearing my Jay and The Americans hat.

They put out great music during the 60s, early 70s. And two of the original members still perform with the band.

They’re just still excellent to hear and everyone always enjoys it.

Tonight I was supposed to see Art Garfunkel. He had to cancel his concert due to a lung infection. And I hope to see him rescheduled.

I’ll keep you posted. Have a great day.