Overhanging Branches in the Netherlands: Artikel 5:44 BW

A branch reaching across the boundary from next door is one of the most common neighbour disputes in the Netherlands, and the law gives a clear answer. Artikel 5:44 BW sets out exactly what you may demand, and what you may do yourself if the neighbour does nothing.

The article draws a sharp line that surprises many readers: overhanging branches and encroaching roots are handled differently. Branches you may cut only after a formal warning; roots you may cut with no warning at all.

This page works through artikel 5:44 BW in full, explains why the written demand (aanmaning) matters so much for branches, sets out the limit that stops self-help becoming an abuse of right, and covers the separate rules on how close a tree or hedge may stand to the boundary.

Information last verified on 22 July 2026. This page provides general legal information about Netherlands law and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

What artikel 5:44 BW says

Overhanging branches (overhangende takken) sit in artikel 5:44 BW. The statute actually speaks of plantings, beplantingen, so it reaches overhanging growth generally rather than branches alone. The Dutch text reads:

1 Indien een nabuur wiens beplantingen over eens anders erf heenhangen, ondanks aanmaning van de eigenaar van dit erf, nalaat het overhangende te verwijderen, kan laatstgenoemde eigenaar eigenmachtig het overhangende wegsnijden en zich toeëigenen. 2 Degene op wiens erf wortels van een ander erf doorschieten, mag deze voor zover ze doorgeschoten zijn weghakken en zich toeëigenen.

The article has two limbs, one for branches and one for roots, and they carry different conditions. The shared, plain-English version of the rule is this:

artikel 5:44 BW lets you demand that a neighbour remove branches that overhang your plot; if the neighbour ignores a written demand (aanmaning), you may cut the overhang yourself and keep it. Roots that grow across into your land you may cut off without any warning and keep.

Branches: demand first, then self-help

For anything that overhangs your plot, artikel 5:44 lid 1 BW gives you a right to demand that the neighbour remove it. That demand is the starting point, and in most cases it resolves the matter without anyone climbing a ladder.

If the neighbour ignores the demand, the article then lets you act. You may cut off the overhanging part yourself (eigenmachtig wegsnijden) and you may keep what you cut (zich toeëigenen). The right to cut is therefore a fall-back that opens only once the neighbour has been asked and has failed to act.

What you may cut is the overhang, meaning the part that crosses the boundary into your airspace. The article does not entitle you to reach across and prune the tree on the neighbour's side, and it does not let you fell the tree.

Roots: cut without warning

Roots are the mirror image. Artikel 5:44 lid 2 BW provides that roots which grow across from a neighbouring plot into your land may be chopped off (weghakken), so far as they have entered, and kept. There is no demand requirement here at all.

The reason for the difference is practical. Roots below ground are hard to see and to warn about, and cutting the part that has entered your own soil interferes far less with the neighbour's tree than sawing off visible branches. So the law lets you deal with roots on your own side directly.

The written demand (aanmaning) and when damages start

For branches, the aanmaning is not a formality you can skip. Until you have made the demand and the neighbour has failed to act on it, cutting the overhang yourself is not covered by artikel 5:44 BW, and a neighbour could in principle hold you responsible for damage to the tree.

The same logic governs money. Artikel 5:42 lid 4 BW provides that, even for a planting that is unlawfully close to the boundary, compensation is owed only for damage arising after the moment removal was formally demanded (aangemaand). In both settings the written demand is what starts the clock and unlocks the remedy.

A demand should be in writing, identify the overhang clearly and give the neighbour a reasonable period to act. Keeping a copy matters, because if the dispute escalates the demand is the fact that authorises everything you do next.

Limits on self-help: misbruik van bevoegdheid

The right to cut is real but not absolute. Dutch courts have accepted that self-help under artikel 5:44 BW can be limited by the general prohibition on abuse of right (misbruik van bevoegdheid) in artikel 3:13 BW.

The practical example is a drastic cut. Where removing the overhang would, in effect, destroy or seriously disfigure a mature and healthy tree, wholly out of proportion to the nuisance the overhang causes, exercising the letter of the right can tip into an abuse of it. The safer course, and often the required one, is to cut back only what genuinely overhangs and no more.

Because this limit turns on proportionality and on the facts of the individual tree, it is one area where taking advice before cutting an old or valuable tree is sensible.

Trees near the boundary: distances and the scheidsmuur exception

Overhang is a separate question from how close a tree or hedge may stand to the boundary in the first place. That is governed by artikel 5:42 BW:

Planting distances are fixed by artikel 5:42 BW: a tree must stand at least two metres from the boundary, measured from the centre of its foot, and a shrub or hedge at least half a metre, unless a local ordinance or a local custom allows a smaller distance.

A planting that stands too close can in principle be required to be moved or removed, unless a local ordinance or custom allows less. The one point this page keeps is the exception in artikel 5:42 lid 3 BW: you cannot object to a tree, shrub or hedge that does not rise higher than the dividing wall (scheidsmuur) between the plots, because a low planting that respects that height does not have to meet the distance.

The planting distances themselves, the right to put up a fence, and the right to demand a shared dividing wall are covered in full on the page on fences and planting distances.