When is a permit required?

Legal regulations - when you can and when not you can cut trees

In principle, trees are not allowed between the 1st March and 30. September strong cut back or even be felled. This regulation is intended to protect breeding birds. In addition, in many municipalities, deciduous trees with a trunk circumference of approx. 60 centimeters and conifers with a circumference of 80 cm or more can only be felled if the reasons are given and with official approval. Only fruit trees are exempt from this rule. Reasons are, for example, a wood-destroying one illness of the tree or because it threatens to topple over anyway. However, the specific regulations differ in the individual federal states, often even from municipality to municipality. For this reason, you should always make inquiries with the responsible authorities before you start any felling work. As a rule, these are affiliated with the municipal administration.

Be careful with border trees: first obtain permission from the co-owners

Felling so-called border trees can be problematic, because all owners must also give their consent. Border trees are trees that are located directly on the border between two (or more) properties or on a communal meadow and therefore have not just one, but several owners. Here you are not allowed to act unauthorized, instead the neighbors concerned are to be questioned or to obtain a majority decision at an owners' meeting. This also applies if a specific user was previously granted a special right of use over the tree-covered part of the garden.

Observe the statutes of allotments and allotments

Even if fruit trees are generally exempt from the permit requirement, pears, apples and the like may not be felled without further ado, at least in an allotment garden. Here, the association's statutes often regulate the relevant procedure, which is why garden tenants should first take a look at the regulations. Incidentally, in this context walnut trees do not belong to the fruit trees, but to the deciduous trees and are therefore also particularly protected.

The right time of year to fell trees

If all the necessary permits have been obtained, the tree is felled between November and the end of January / beginning of February at best. At this time, the trunk carries less water, which is why the wood dries faster - anyone who wants to make firewood or otherwise process the wood will benefit from it. In addition, deciduous trees do not bear any foliage at this point and the work is therefore easier can be run - quite apart from the fact that there are definitely no more bird eggs in the nest are found.