>I know this should be his responsibilityIt's not unusual for parts overhanging your property to be your responsibility. The rules aren't the same everywhere, find out what the situation actually is there before taking any additional actions.

I am an urban planner and an arborist.

I would wager there are zero cities in this country that would allow you to go onto your neighbor's property and prune in this situation. If you get him to agree to your paying for pruning, you'll want it in writing as this is fraught with problems.

The issue is whether it is a hazard to the wires, whether vermin use it as a travel corridor, whether the fruit is a nuisance impeding your health, safety or welfare, and lastly whether the plant negatively impacts your quality of life/property values.

Second, it is common to have older laws that allow you to prune up from your property line, even though this is generally detrimental to the plants. As an arborist, I don't recommend this and I doubt you'll find a certified arborist to do this (altho in this economy, who knows, and the tree may be senescing so maybe someone would justify it to themselves).

Third, there may be an ordinance on the books that allows the city to allow pruning by a certified third party (utility pruner) to fix the hazard.

These are your general options without looking at your city's municipal code. This situation is common and part of dealing with people and neighbors, has gone on forever and will continue into the indefinite future. This is why we have zoning and property laws and ways to remedy grievances, but the grievances have limits.

Good luck.

Dan

Dan wrote: "The issue is whether it is a hazard to the wires, whether vermin use it as a travel corridor, whether the fruit is a nuisance impeding your health, safety or welfare, and lastly whether the plant negatively impacts your quality of life/property values."
Well, all of these things are true! We had the electric company come out and replace the wires because the squirrels were chewing on the wires. Needless to say they use the tree to travel from the surrounding yards to the squirrel condo that is my neighbors house. He probably has 20 squirrels living there! The fruit is inedible (to humans!) and a big mess. I clean it up on my side of the fence, but it does attract rats as well as feed the squirrels for another season, not to mention the yellow jackets. Jeez, this tree is really not worth it! The rats were really freaking me out this past fall. My neighbor would never deal with this situation. Maybe I'll have to call the city and have them deal with him. He is nice but so clueless. He will give me written permission to do any pruning. I'll have to sit on this. I don't want to get on bad terms with my neighbor but I really don't want to deal with those rats again! Thanks for your responses!

Maybe I'll have to call the city and have them deal with him.

There should be a law on the books about responsibility for nuisance vegetation. Do that.

Good luck,

Dan