Legal Duty of Care
The safety of trees is nearly always the responsibility of the owner of the land on which they grow; but there are some exceptions, such as when a rental agreement requires the tenants of a property to manage the trees.
The tree owner or manager has a ‘common law’ duty of care to:
‘take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which they can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure their neighbour’
The tree owner also has a duty under the Occupiers Liability Acts to take reasonable steps to ensure visitors or trespassers on their land are safe.
In practice this means that if a tree fails and causes damage to a person or property then the tree owner may be liable.
The chances of making a claim, however, would usually depend on whether the owner had been negligent; for example, if the tree was obviously unsafe through damage or disease, and they failed to act to prevent the incident occurring.
Therefore if you own trees it is sensible to have them regularly inspected by a competent arboriculturist.