Oklahoma Woman Says Neighbors Built A ‘Friendly Fence.’ Then She Sees What They Did To Her Property: ‘Tree Law Is STRICT – Enjoy Your Thousands’

A woman says her neighbors chopped down her trees. Now, the internet says she’s entitled to a lot of money.

Tree law is an area where there are a lot more rules—and a lot higher punishments—than one might expect. For example, one internet user claimed that his neighbor bulldozed several trees on his land. After a subsequent investigation of the relevant laws, he determined he could be owed hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In this case, an Oklahoma woman says her neighbors cut down trees on her property. When she asked the neighbor to replace the trees, he told her to call a lawyer. Here’s why he might regret that decision.

Why Did Her Neighbor Cut Down Her Trees?

In a video with over 6.9 million views, TikTok user Lillie (@skootergorl) says she’s suing her neighbors “because they cut down 20 trees and bushes from my property.”

The reason for this destruction? According to Lillie, they wanted to build a “friendly fence.” The fence they actually built, however, is a misshapen mess.

“Look at how uneven all of these little spaces are. What is that?” Lillie says, observing the fence. “And, it’s 7 feet tall. Like, that’s not even remotely friendly.”

While the fence is an eyesore, Lillie says the real loss is the trees.

“RIP my trees. I miss them so much,” Lillie says. Looking at the stumps, she says that some of the trees were decades old. Lillie says that the garden’s “beautiful, gorgeous” plants were one of the main reasons they bought the property; now, the neighbors “tore it all down.”

“The craziest part is, we weren’t planning on suing,” Lillie says. “We just wanted repayment for the trees. Like, just new trees. That way, they could grow even though it’s years and years of growth down.”

“But, they decided to continue cutting into the trees for no good reason and told us to just go ahead and call our lawyer,” she continues. “So, that’s exactly what we did.”

The Backstory

In a follow-up video, Lillie explains how this situation came to pass.

According to Lillie, she claims that her neighbors had long discussed replacing their chain link fence with a wooden fence to match the front of their house. Lillie says they had no problem with this.

“So, we hear absolutely nothing from them for months. I’m talking, we’re going, like, August all the way to March, not hearing a word from them,” she recalls.

“And then, on a random Saturday morning, we were out and about, going to a comedy show, shopping, all of that good stuff. They call us and they say that they’re going to be replacing the fence today. They’re gonna be taking down the old one, and in a week, they’ll put up the new one, and that in the meantime, their dog will be running around,” she continues. “That’s all that was said on that call. And we were like, ‘OK, that’s fine.’

When they got back to their home, they discovered the neighbor had chopped down a significant number of trees and bushes. They had also left the detritus on Lillie’s lawn.

In the weeks following, Lillie says she tried to discuss the issue with the neighbors. While they occasionally seemed apologetic, they were not open to compensation or replacement of the trees in the terms set forth by Lillie.

At one point, Lillie even spotted them cutting down more trees. When confronted, the neighbor’s sister told Lillie to pursue the issue with a lawyer. Now, that’s what she plans to do.

What Legal Recourse Does She Have?

Provided that Lillie is accurate in her recollection of events, she’s likely entitled to a fair bit of money.

Oklahoma’s timber-damage statute says that “wrongful injuries to timber upon the land of another, or removal thereof” are a crime. As such, Lillie would be entitled to compensation of “not less than three (3) times nor more than ten (10) times” the value of the loss.

“Loss” is not just the cost of replacement, either. It could be the cost of the tree itself, the damage to the property value, the value of the tree’s wood, and more. Consequently, the value of a tree can easily range from hundreds to thousands of dollars.

With multiple trees and bushes cut down, and a potential multiplier of up to 10 times the value in damages, it’s fair to say Lillie could receive thousands to tens of thousands of dollars as a result of the neighbor’s decision. She could also decide to bring up other charges, such as malicious destruction of property.

There are some caveats here. For example, if the neighbor acted “under the belief that the timber or land belonged” to them, Lillie would only be entitled to the value of the loss as well as costs and attorneys’ fees, which can still be significant.

Commenters Support Her

In the comments section, users said that Lillie should pursue her neighbors to the fullest extent of the law.

“You said 20 trees? What color Bugatti you getting?” a user joked.

“Tree law. triple check if they even had permits. good luck,” another said.

“Oh mate, you need MATURE tree replacements. This is going to be an extremely expensive ugly fence,” a third declared.

“PLEASE bring out an arborist to evaluate the trees so you get accurate estimates based on maturity!!” a further TikTok user advised.

BroBible reached out to Lillie via Instagram direct message and TikTok direct message.