sigh.
I'll give a synopsis. thank you for the info.
a friend of mine, late 50s, called me in tears last night. Her husband is in his 60s and nearly ready to retire from Ford in Michigan.
They have spent months finding their perfect location for their retirement home, near their daughters (also in Michigan).
They found a beautiful large wooded lot. not sure how many acres. it was very important to them to have woods, they wanted the house to butt up to the woods and have the deck overlook the woods, and so on. the trees are actually more like 35-40 feet tall and pretty dense she said - she estimated 2 feet between them all but I don't know, didn't see pictures. they closed on it and are prepping to build.
they also have an HOA which has very strict rules about clearing of trees. in other words, you can't - not without express permission. obviously to do the house they got permission for the stuff where the house would sit.
apparently they did the walk with the builder about clearing enough to build. there were blue taped lines set up, not sure if it was the surveyor who did that, or what. beyond the lines, no cutting - but she did ask them to clear out the dead logs lying around, past the blue taped lines. he said sure, no probs, but to do so is an extra 500 bucks.
she showed up yesterday afternoon to see how far they had gotten. the builder himself was not there but his laborers were.
sit down... are you sitting?
THEY DENUDED HER LOT.
they razed her lot!! there was one small strip of trees left, and they even had hauled out the log chipper and had fed all her trees into it. she was so upset, she was crying and she even said to the guy "well, what made you stop, why stop there?!!" and he said "the chipper broke, we had to go get a spare part". he was literally waiting for his helper to get back and replace it so they could finish!!
she estimates 500 trees gone. mind you, I haven't seen a picture so I have no idea. she may be so distraught she's overestimating, I do not know.
naturally I advised her to see an attorney among many other things. I'm upset and I'm not even a part of this.