How to Choose a Tree Surgeon: Questions to Ask Before You Hire
No licence is required to trade as a tree surgeon in the United Kingdom. Anyone can buy a chainsaw, print a van livery and quote for work on a mature tree. The checks below are therefore the only thing standing between a homeowner and an uninsured operator working at height above their roof.
Nine questions separate a competent arborist from a risk. They take about fifteen minutes to work through.
Why the cheapest quote is the wrong first filter
Price variation in tree surgery reflects cost structure, not margin. A contractor carrying £5m public liability cover, current chainsaw certification for every operative, Environment Agency waste carrier registration and LOLER-inspected climbing equipment carries overheads an uninsured operator does not.
A quote significantly below the others usually means one of those costs has been removed. Typical tree surgery prices across Hampshire vary by access, species and disposal method, worth reading the breakdown of what drives a tree surgery quote in Hampshire before comparing figures, because two quotes for "removing an oak" can describe entirely different jobs with different rigging requirements and different waste volumes.
Compare quotes on scope first. Price second.
The insurance and qualification checks that take five minutes
Two insurance types apply, and they are not equivalent.
Employers' liability insurance is legally compulsory. The Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969 requires a minimum of £5m cover for any business with employees. A tree surgery firm with a crew and no employers' liability policy is trading illegally.
Public liability insurance is not legally required. It is the policy that pays when a falling limb goes through a conservatory roof or a neighbour's car. Industry practice across UK arboriculture is a £5m minimum, and £10m is common for firms working near highways or on commercial sites.
Ask for both certificates by email before the site visit. Check three things on each: the insurer's name, the expiry date, and whether the described activities include tree work at height and use of a chainsaw from a rope and harness. A policy that excludes aerial work is worthless on a dismantling job.
For qualifications, ask which certificates the climber holds for the specific job. Chainsaw competence in the UK is unit-based rather than general, ground-based cross-cutting, felling, climbing and aerial rescue, and chainsaw use from a rope and harness are separately assessed. A full explanation of what NPTC units, BS 3998 and ARB Approved Contractor status each actually certify is worth reading before the conversation, because the badges on a tree surgeon's website certify very different things and only one of them involves independent assessment of the business itself.
Questions about method: what they will actually do to the tree
Ask what pruning specification the contractor is working to, and how much of the crown they intend to remove.
BS 3998:2010, the British Standard for tree work, advises against removing a large proportion of a mature tree's crown in a single operation, because heavy reduction triggers dense epicormic regrowth and can decline the tree. A contractor who answers "we'll take it back by half" on a mature specimen is describing topping, not a crown reduction.
Three specific questions distinguish specification from guesswork:
- What percentage of the crown is being removed, and measured from where?
- Where will the pruning cuts be made, to a growth point, or mid-branch?
- What is the tree expected to look like in three years' time?
The difference between reducing a crown, thinning it and lifting it is a difference in outcome, cost and regrowth pattern. Homeowners who understand what crown thinning removes and what it deliberately leaves alone tend to get quotes for the work they actually wanted rather than the most expensive option on the list.
Questions about waste: why the law puts the risk on you
This is the check almost no homeowner makes, and it is the one that carries personal legal exposure.
Under section 34(2A) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, a householder has a duty of care to take reasonable steps to ensure their waste is passed only to an authorised carrier. Arisings from tree work, chip, cordwood, brash, are your waste until they are legally transferred.
If a contractor fly-tips that material, the council can trace it and issue a fixed penalty notice of up to £600 to the householder, alongside a possible fine of up to £5,000 on conviction. Wiltshire Council issued exactly this penalty in 2026 to a resident who could not produce a name, a vehicle registration or a receipt for the person who took their waste.
Ask for the contractor's waste carrier registration number and check it on the Environment Agency's public register of waste carriers, brokers and dealers. Keep the quote, the invoice and the registration number. That paper trail is the defence; its absence is what enforcement relies on.
Checking the tree's legal status before anyone quotes
A competent contractor checks protection status before pricing the job, because protection changes both the timeline and what can lawfully be done.
Winchester City Council publishes TPO and conservation area boundaries through its WCC Public View mapping service, with separate layers for individual TPO trees, group TPOs and conservation areas. The council states the map is indicative only and asks tree owners to confirm status with the tree team on 01962 848 301 before work is planned.
The practical consequence is scheduling. Work on a tree in a Winchester conservation area requires six weeks' written notice to the council before a saw is started. A contractor who quotes on Monday and offers to start on Thursday, on a tree in the city centre, St Cross or one of the residential conservation areas, either has not checked or intends to proceed unlawfully. Understanding how a Tree Preservation Order restricts work on a garden tree makes it much easier to tell which of those two is happening.
Ask directly: have you checked whether this tree is protected, and who submits the notification?
Red flags that should end the conversation
Six behaviours reliably indicate an operator to avoid:
- Cold-calling or door-knocking, particularly after a storm.
- Cash only, no written quote, no invoice. This removes the waste-transfer paper trail described above.
- Pressure to decide during the visit, often framed as a crew already being in the area.
- A verbal claim of insurance with no certificate produced, or a certificate that has expired.
- Any offer to work on a protected tree immediately, or advice that the council "will not notice".
- Climbing on ladders or working from spikes on a tree being pruned rather than removed. Spikes wound the trunk and are appropriate only on a tree coming down.
Getting it in writing: what a proper quote contains
A written quote should be specific enough that a second contractor could price the identical job from it.
It should name each tree by species and position, state the operation per tree in standard terms, state the percentage reduction where applicable, confirm what happens to the arisings, confirm protection status and who handles any notification, state whether stump grinding is included and to what depth, and give the total with VAT shown separately.
"Tidy up trees in rear garden, £900" is not a quote. It is a number.
Where a tree's condition is genuinely uncertain, a written tree health assessment carried out before the work is specified is a smaller cost than removing a tree that could have been retained, and it gives an independent record if a neighbour or insurer later queries the decision.
The nine questions, in order
- Can you email me your public liability and employers' liability certificates?
- Which chainsaw and aerial units does the climber working on my tree hold?
- Are you an ARB Approved Contractor, or a member of a professional body?
- What percentage of the crown are you removing, and where are the cuts?
- Is this tree protected, and have you checked with the council?
- Who submits the notification, and how does that affect the start date?
- What is your waste carrier registration number?
- What happens to the chip and the timber?
- Can I have the whole thing in writing, itemised per tree?
A contractor who answers all nine without hesitation is the one to shortlist. We answer them as standard before quoting anywhere across Winchester and the surrounding villages, including confirming protection status with the council's tree team ourselves rather than leaving it with the homeowner.
Want Us to Answer All Nine?
Book a free site visit and we'll walk you through certificates, specification and protection status before you commit to anything.