Sutter County, CA Landscaping Rules: Tree Trimming (2026)

The Sutter County Code of Ordinances (codified through Ord. No. 1731, April 29, 2025) contains no chapter regulating routine tree trimming or pruning on private property in the unincorporated county. State law therefore supplies the rules. Under California Civil Code Section 833, trees whose trunks stand wholly on one owner's land belong exclusively to that owner even if roots grow into a neighbor's land; under Section 834, boundary-line trees whose trunks stand partly on the land of two or more adjoining owners belong to them in common. A neighbor may trim encroaching branches and roots back to the property line, but California courts require that trimming be done reasonably: wrongful injury to timber or trees on another's land triggers double damages, and willful injury triggers treble damages, under Civil Code Section 3346. Separately, for any building or structure located in a State Responsibility Area (which in Sutter County includes the Sutter Buttes), Public Resources Code Section 4291 requires maintaining 100 feet of defensible space, with tree branches and other fuels maintained so a wildfire would be unlikely to ignite the structure.