Arborist reports for permits and disputes
Sometimes what a situation needs is not a saw. It is a certified arborist walking the property, writing down what he found, and putting his name and credential number on it.
- Method
- Site inspection, written findings, credential named
- Outcome
- A document you can hand to somebody
Before you book this one
When you need this
- A city or a permit process is asking for an assessment before a tree can come out
- An insurer wants an opinion on a tree or on damage a tree has caused
- You are buying or selling and the trees are part of the negotiation
- You and a neighbor disagree about a tree and want somebody impartial to look
- A builder or an engineer needs to know what the trees on the lot mean for the plan
What we do
- Devin walks the site as an ISA Certified Arborist and inspects the trees in question
- Species, size, condition, defects and what he can see of the root zone all recorded
- A plain written document with his findings, his reasoning and his credential on it
- Photographs of what he is describing, so the reader can see what he saw
- A clear statement of what he did and did not have access to
What to know
- A report says what the arborist found. It is not a promise about what a tree will do, and no honest report reads that way
- We do not write a report to a conclusion somebody has asked for in advance. If the finding does not help your case, it still says what it says
- This is a separate piece of work from the tree work, and it is quoted separately
Most people meet this service the hard way. They call to have a tree taken out, and the city comes back asking for an assessment from a certified arborist before anything is issued. At that point you need somebody with the credential, and there are fewer of them locally than you would guess.
The other half of the work is disputes and transactions. A neighbor is worried about a tree on your side, or you are worried about one on theirs. An insurer wants to know whether a failure was foreseeable. A buyer wants to know whether the fir over the garage is a problem they are inheriting. In each case, what settles it is a written opinion from somebody qualified who actually stood there.
Devin holds the ISA Certified Arborist credential and a Tree Risk Assessment Qualification, so a report from him carries both what he found and the recognised framework he assessed it under. He writes what he saw. If your tree is fine, the report says the tree is fine, and that is usually the outcome people want anyway.
Questions people ask about this
Will a report get my permit approved?
It gets you the document the process asks for, and it is written properly. What it cannot do is decide the outcome, because that is the city's call and it depends on their code and the specifics of your lot. What we can do is tell you at the visit what we think the report will end up saying, so you are not paying for a piece of paper to find out something we could already see.
What does a report actually contain?
The site, the date, who inspected it and under what credential. Then each tree in question with its species, rough size, condition, any defects found, what could be seen of the root zone and the surroundings, photographs of those observations, and the arborist's findings and reasoning. It also states what was not accessible, because an honest report is clear about the limits of what one visit can see.
Can you write one for a tree that is not on my property?
He can assess what is visible from your side and from public ground, and say so plainly in the report. What he cannot do is go onto a neighbor's land or inspect their tree closely without their permission. That limitation goes into the document, which is normal, and a report that is honest about what it could and could not see tends to carry more weight rather than less.
Related work
Have a certified arborist look at it
Tell us what the trees are doing and we will come out, walk the property with you and write it up. The visit is free, it takes about 20 to 30 minutes, and you get an itemized estimate you can hold on to.
Call or text
(360) 842 7433Washington contractor licence WARRIBT777DF. Licensed, bonded and insured. Verify on LNI.wa.gov.ISA Certified Arborist PN 368801AEstimates are scheduled Monday to Friday, 9am to 4pm Pacific.