Disputes with neighbours are unpleasant. Very often, it is about boundary distances, for example about how high a hedge may be. The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has made some fundamental judgements on this.
The owners of neighbouring properties in Hesse were involved in the legal dispute. Since the 1960s, there has been an embankment along the shared property boundary on one of the properties. In 2018, the neighbour planted bamboo on this embankment, which has since reached a height of six to seven metres.
The plaintiff demanded that the bamboo be cut back to a height of three metres, measured from the ground level of the plaintiff's property. In proceedings through all instances, the Federal Court of Justice ruled (BGH, 28.03.2025, V ZR 185/23): "If a property owner does not comply with the boundary distances prescribed in the state neighbouring law when planting, the neighbour may be entitled to a claim for removal of the resulting impairment for him, which is to be fulfilled by pruning." Such a pruning claim is provided for in the Hessian Neighbour Law.
However, Hessian neighbouring legislation only stipulates certain distances from the property boundary for hedges. For hedges with a height of up to 1.2 metres, a distance of 25 centimetres must be maintained from the neighbouring property, with a height of up to two metres a distance of 50 centimetres and with a height of over two metres a distance of 75 centimetres. A general height limit independent of these specifications cannot be derived from the term "hedge".
If a hedge is planted on an elevated property, the permissible hedge height is generally to be measured from the point at which the hedge emerges from the ground. Deviating from this, the original ground level is decisive in the temporal context of the planting, provided that an (artificial) raising of the ground level takes place in the area of the property boundary. However, this is not the case here, as the landfill on the defendant's property took place decades ago.
Graphic: © Cornell Frühauf, Pixabay
