If a tree or limb is on a house, across a road, or touching powerlines right now, stop reading and call emergency services or the network operator.
A tree has come down on my house. What do I do first?
Get everyone out and away from the affected part of the building, including the area underneath and around it, and keep children and animals clear.
Call 000 if there is fire, injury, or an immediate threat to life. Call the NSW State Emergency Service on 132 500 for storm damage, including trees down on homes. If powerlines are involved in any way, contact the network operator and treat everything near the tree as live.
Once the scene is safe, photograph it before anything is moved. Wide shots and close-ups, including the damage to the building. Those photographs are what your insurer and, if it becomes relevant, your council will ask for, and they cannot be recreated once the clean-up starts.
Then contact your insurer. Many have a twenty-four hour claims line, and some arrange make-safe work directly.
Do I need council approval to remove a storm damaged tree?
Possibly not, but you cannot assume it.
Most Sydney councils exempt trees that are dead, dying, or posing an imminent risk to life or property. In almost every case the wording requires Council to have been notified and to be satisfied before the work, and several councils require photographic evidence or a report from a qualified arborist.
A tree that has already fallen completely is a different matter to a damaged tree still standing. The standing one is where the exemption question arises, and it is where people get caught.
The exemptions also commonly do not apply on heritage items, inside heritage conservation areas, or where biodiversity or threatened species mapping applies. Our guide to emergency tree work and what counts as an imminent risk sets out how each council words it, and the council approval guide covers the broader system.
The tree looks fine but it went through a bad storm. Should I worry?
Worth having looked at, particularly if any of the following apply.
A limb is sitting noticeably lower than it was. The tree has developed a lean, or an existing lean has changed. There is soil lifting, cracking or heaving on one side of the base. There is a fresh crack in the trunk or a major limb. There are branches hanging in the canopy that have detached but not fallen.
The pattern worth understanding is that the dangerous damage is often not the obvious damage. A tree stripped of foliage with small branches down can be structurally sound. A tree that looks largely intact can have a cracked union you cannot see from the ground, which will fail in the next decent wind.
Trees are also more vulnerable in the weeks after a storm than before it, because saturated soil reduces root anchorage and a tree that held through one event may not hold through the next.
My neighbour’s tree fell onto my property. Who is responsible?
This turns on the circumstances rather than on a general rule, and it is a question for your insurer rather than for a tree company.
Broadly, insurers deal with damage to the property the tree landed on, and the question of whether anyone is at fault is separate. Fault usually turns on whether the owner knew, or ought to have known, that the tree was hazardous and failed to act. That is why documented maintenance matters: an owner who had the tree assessed and acted on the advice is in a very different position to one who ignored a known defect.
For the physical work, the ordinary rules apply. The owner of the land the trunk sits on is the person who can authorise work on the tree and who applies to council. Where it has already come down across a boundary, the practical course is usually for both owners and both insurers to sort out the clean-up together rather than one side acting unilaterally.
If significant money is involved, get legal advice. Councils will not arbitrate: The Hills Shire, for example, states plainly that it cannot negotiate or intervene in neighbourhood tree disputes and that these are civil matters.
Will my insurance cover tree removal?
It depends on the policy and the circumstances, and nobody outside your insurer can tell you.
What generally helps a claim: photographs taken before anything was moved, evidence of damage to an insured structure, a written quote rather than a verbal figure, and a record of reasonable maintenance.
What generally complicates one: removing or disposing of the tree before the insurer has seen it, work carried out by an uninsured operator, a tree with an obvious pre-existing defect that was not acted on, and removal of a tree that did no damage to anything.
Call the insurer before authorising anything beyond make-safe work. Many policies distinguish between removing a tree that has damaged an insured structure and removing a tree that simply fell over, and the distinction can matter.
There are branches hanging in the canopy. Is that urgent?
Yes, if there is anything underneath.
A limb that has broken but is caught in the canopy is held by nothing reliable. It can release in light wind, or with no wind at all. In arboriculture these are called widowmakers, and they are one of the few situations where prompt action is warranted regardless of season or species.
The immediate step is to clear the area underneath and keep it clear: move vehicles, outdoor furniture and play equipment, and close off paths. Risk is the combination of failure likelihood and what sits beneath, and you can remove one half of that in minutes.
Do not try to bring it down yourself, and do not throw anything at it. A hung-up limb under tension does not fall where you expect.
Can I just cut the broken bits off myself?
No, and this is not a matter of confidence or tools.
Storm-damaged wood is under tension and compression in ways that are not visible, and it moves unpredictably when cut. Working above head height, on a ladder, or with a chainsaw on material under load is how people are seriously injured. The presence of damaged structures, unstable ground or nearby conductors makes it worse.
There is also the regulatory side. Pruning beyond a small threshold needs council approval in most of Sydney, and the thresholds are narrow: The Hills Shire allows up to ten per cent of a canopy per growing season, Hornsby Shire allows less than ten per cent of foliage area once a year, and both require the work to comply with AS 4373-2007. Removing a storm-damaged limb badly can be both an injury risk and a breach.
What happens to a torn branch if it is left?
A branch ripped from a trunk leaves a ragged wound, usually with bark stripped down the stem below the break. That is a poor surface for the tree to compartmentalise, which is how trees wall off damage rather than healing it.
Left as it is, the wound stays open longer, decay has a better entry point, and the stripped bark below the tear can extend the damage. Cleaning the break back to a proper cut at the nearest appropriate point is worth doing reasonably promptly, and it is a different job to removing the hanging piece.
Timing is one of the clear exceptions to the usual pruning calendar. Our guide to when to prune trees in Sydney covers why storm damage is dealt with when it happens rather than in season.
How soon can I get someone out after a storm?
Demand spikes after a major event, and every established operator in the city is working through a queue in roughly the order of risk.
That order is reasonable and worth understanding: trees on buildings and across access first, hung-up limbs over occupied areas next, then standing trees with serious defects, then clean-up and assessment of everything else.
What you can do while you wait is reduce the consequence side of the risk. Clear what is underneath, close off the area, park elsewhere, and avoid the part of the house under a damaged limb if that is practical. That buys time safely.
Should I accept a quote from someone who knocks on the door?
Be cautious. Storm damage brings itinerant operators into Sydney suburbs, and the pressure to accept a fast offer is highest exactly when a tree has just failed and the householder is rattled.
The checks are the same as any other time and they take a few minutes: a written quote, current public liability and workers compensation certificates, a business name and contact details that exist, and a clear answer on how the tree will be dismantled. An operator who cannot produce insurance certificates, wants a large cash deposit, or tells you the price expires today is telling you something.
Our FAQ on choosing an arborist in Sydney sets out the full list, including why nobody in New South Wales is a “licensed arborist”.
How long should I wait before deciding to remove a damaged tree?
Longer than most people expect, once the immediate hazard is gone.
Trees that look finished after a storm often recover. A canopy stripped of foliage in November can reflush within weeks. A tree that has lost a major limb may still have a sound structure and decades of useful life. Removal is permanent and a decision made in the week after a storm is made with the least information and the most adrenaline.
What should happen quickly is the make-safe work: hanging limbs down, anything over an occupied area dealt with, access cleared. What can wait is the judgement about the standing tree. An assessment after the ground has dried and the tree has had a chance to respond will tell you considerably more than one taken while the site is still a mess.
The exception is a tree with a clear structural failure, such as a split union or significant root plate movement, where waiting adds risk rather than information.
Does a council tree preservation order stop me acting in an emergency?
No, but it changes what you have to do.
Preservation provisions do not require anyone to stand underneath a failing tree. What they require is that the exemption pathway is followed, which in most Sydney councils means notifying Council and getting its position before the work, supported by photographs and often an arborist’s assessment.
Where there is an immediate threat to life, the emergency services pathway operates on its own terms and the regulatory side follows afterwards. That is a genuinely urgent situation, not a tree you are uneasy about.
The important distinction is that an exemption is not a general licence. It is specific to trees meeting the council’s wording, it usually does not apply on heritage land or where biodiversity mapping applies, and the burden of showing the tree met the test sits with the property owner afterwards. That is what the photographs are for.
The tree is fine but my yard is full of debris. Is that a tree job?
It can be, and it is worth asking, because it is often cheaper bundled with other work than arranged separately.
Clarify at the quote stage whether material is being removed entirely, chipped on site with the mulch left for you, or cut to firewood lengths and stacked. Fresh chip from a diseased tree should not be spread near susceptible plants, which is a question for whoever assesses the tree.
Debris is also worth photographing before it goes, if there is any prospect of an insurance claim.
Will the council deal with a street tree that came down?
Yes. Trees on council land, including nature strips, parks and reserves, are council’s responsibility, and residents generally cannot prune or remove them.
Report it to the council, and where the tree is across a road or in contact with powerlines, to emergency services or the network operator as well. After a major storm, councils and network operators run their own prioritised clearance programmes.
Where a council tree has damaged your property, document it thoroughly. An arborist’s assessment of the failure strengthens the position considerably.
Can I prevent this next year?
Partly, and the honest answer is that a severe enough event will bring down a sound tree.
What does reduce risk is assessment rather than cutting: identifying hanging and dead limbs, defective unions, decay and root plate problems before the season, and dealing with the specific parts that present a problem. Deadwooding, removing a defective limb and selective thinning over a structure all help.
What does not help is cutting a healthy tree back hard in the belief that a smaller tree is a safer tree. The regrowth that follows is weakly attached and makes the tree more likely to fail in following seasons, not less.
The useful cycle for most established trees is an inspection every few years and after any severe storm, rather than routine pruning on a schedule.
Get the tree assessed once the site is safe
After the immediate danger is dealt with, the question is what the standing tree needs, and that is an assessment rather than a guess. In many cases the answer is that the tree is sound and a specific limb needs attention.
Sydney Tree Company provides tree removal, tree surgery, tree health inspection and evaluation, stump grinding and arborist advice across the Sydney metropolitan area and regional Sydney, assists with council tree preservation paperwork, and works throughout the areas we serve.
Call 0431 732 265 to arrange an assessment.