I have an issue with a neighbour’s tree causing subsidence and since my insurance company seem to continue to delay/avoid/ sidestep taking any action I’m considering taking legal action against my neighbour myself. Before I do anything I need some legal advice on what might or might not be possible and potentially a solicitor to act on my behalf. What type of solicitor do I need, and can anybody suggest one?

An aggressive one.
Go from ‘friendly neighbourly chat’ to Defcon 1 without the intermediate steps.

Google ‘boundary dispute specialist’ or ‘property litigation solicitor’ near you

IANAL but when I looked into this for a neighbour boundary issue we had you need to send a letter before action before you do anything. You can do that yourself and substantially cheaper, it also avoids starting £300 letter ping pong.

In our case a formal sounding letter that clearly set out the reasonable actions we had taken to date to resolve the issue and the next steps should X not happen by Y spurred our neighbour into action without getting solicitors involved.

I know you said your insurance co are being useless, but have you got any legal cover through them or any employer schemes? It’s usually separate to the insurance co but they can offer initial advice.

Good call, house insurance does include legal cover which I’ll check but think that’s to protect my household from pursuit rather than y pursue a claim against another. I’ve a feeling it may include a help line though which might give a starting point.

A formal letter with the points as said above sent signed for delivery would be a good starting point I’d say.

We are on the receiving end of something like this, well my mother is and I look after her affairs so me really. Smaller scale, it’s a hedge that has pushed a neighbours wall and needs repair.

Neighbour cameround with photos, fair enough we don’t know the boundaries so will look into it. No imminent danger, just a crack in his wall. Neighbour and mother have lived there 20 years.

I was getting the handyman who works on both houses to fix.

Then neighbour decided to go all legal, threatening all sorts. He s bored basically. Our house insurance covers it, plus we could get the handyman to fix. However, instructing a solicitor to peruse your neighbour is not a good way to expedite things.

So i would think pretty hard about how to move things forward directly.

As above really. Once you go down the legal route then all goodwill goes out of the window so I would exhaust all options with the neighbour in as pleasant a manner as possible first before going nuclear.

Well I’ve tried speaking nicely.

Via my insurers he’s been put on formal notice that his tree is damaging my house twice iirc in 4 years, told he should inform his insurance who may not cover him if he doesn’t act to remove the nuisance. However he hasn’t acted and my insurers are resistant to engineering solutions, presumably due to the very significant costs and, being a semi detached, not sure there is an engineering solution anyway. So, I’d like advice on what my legal course of action might be.

Anybody that has suffered subsidence for over a decade, the last half of which no progress has been made as neighbour with cause (tree) isn’t interested in acting even when offers to fund all work are made, and insurers desperate to avoid the costs of underpinning and simply sitting on their hands, would understand I’ve tried nice, time and again, but it’s time to lawyer up and get some advice.