Wood Collecting Ettiquette

[davomaddo]

Every day on my way to work, I drive by 2 giant fir trees that have been blown over by a wind storm.
They have been down for over a year now. They are in undeveloped land about 30 ft off the road.
On the other side of the road there are houses - so it is in a somewhat developed area.
It seems like a shame to have those huge logs just rot.

What are the rules on cutting down timber? I am assuming I can't just go in onto someone's property and start cutting logs.
However, I am doubting that anyone would care if I did. If they ever wanted to develp the property, it would be a pain for them to get rid of huge rotten logs.
These are about 100 year old Douglas Fir logs - really big.

Does anyone know of a website or somewhere where you can look up who the property owner is?

Any comments?

 

[fossil]

These days, if you have a street address, you can likely go to the website of the county and find all the public records including the owner's name. Rick

 

[colsmith]

Ditto to the above, although the procedure varies greatly by location. In Milwaukee County you can look it all up online by address, adjacent properties, name, all sorts of things. In Racine County, at least a few years ago, you had to sit through a training session at the county building downtown and then go through microfiche and ancient books to get the info you want.

An easier route is just to stop and ask at the houses across the street if they know who owns that property with the trees down. Around here when I ask similar questions (I am a wood scrounger, too) the neighbors usually know.

 

[jebatty]

Many landowners would be very pleased to have someone clean up the cut trees, if they are neat and cause no damage. How about offering to share a portion with the landowner as an easy way to obtain permission. I have offered to give the landowner 1/2 and I take 1/2. They usually refuse and say I can take it all.

Trees, standing or fallen, belong to the owner of the land. Find out who owns the land and ask, or you may find ourself in some significant difficulty.

This also is generally true if the power company comes through on line clearing and piles the cut trees along the way. Unless the power company actually owns the land rather than having an easement to cross the land, or unless the easement transfers tree ownership to the power company, the person who owns the land owns the trees.

This also is often true on road right-of-way clearing, but it gets a little more complicated. The cut trees may be owned by the road authority or may be owned by the abutting land owner. In either case the trees are not free to anyone who wants them.

You can't take a cut down tree anymore than you can cut down a tree a take it.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Plat books help find out the owners too.

One problem is a lot of folks are so afraid of sueing. Somebody cuts wood on their land and gets hurt, so comes with a law suit against the owners. That is sad as it hurts a lot of people by cutting off a lot of good things. We have too many lawyers and too lenient of courts.

 

[davomaddo]

Thanks for the tips.
I checked on-line and it was difficult to figure it out.
I'll stop by and ask the neighbor, like you all suggested.

Maybe I'll write up a liability release or something. I have had that come up before.
Someone told me that I would have to sign a release form, but once they got to know me they didn't see a need to follow through with drafting one up.

If I get hurt, it is no one's fault but mine.

 

[fossil]

...That is sad as it hurts a lot of people by cutting off a lot of good things.

There ya go...tell him that if sues ya, you'll cut off a few of his good things. :bug: Rick

 

[whphel]

If your in Snohomish County you can access all the public records you want on line. if you have an address even look at the maps which show the tax account numbers which in turn you can find out who ownes it very easy.

 

[WoodMann]

Yeah- I've been asking around thinking it was subdivision property wehre I saw some nice trees(dead ones) but found out it's private. THinking about how to approach land/ home owners................