Basswood

[victorytea]

A logger is coming tomorrow A.M. to take some basswood logs from my property. I really would like to get most of them out of my woodlot so that other, more valuable trees can get some sunlight.  He said we will split the deal "50/50" but also wants to take a few mature maples and some hickory.  He seems like and honest fellow and I have heard nothing negative about him.  I would like to ask- does this sound like a fair deal i.e. after trucking ect. we split the take?  Anything else I should be concerned with?   Thanks for any info.         Paul F B  

[Gary_C]

Yes, there is a lot to be concerned with. Start with exactly how many is "a few." Then who is going to count the loads that go out to cover your interests? And how is he to leave the tops and slash?

Many of these jobs that are done without a forester to mark trees to cut and define the terms of the sale turn out sour. This logger may be perfectly honest and straight forward, but if you do not properly define what is to be done, you will likely end up being unhappy.

To be fair to the logger, if he is going to be there in the morning, it is rather late to get a forester involved now. You may have to do the foresters work yourself and monitor the job closely.

Gary

[Jeff]

I totally agree with Gary_C.  You should be marking the trees if not a forester. This situation sounds like it has the potential for bad things to happen.

Did you sign a contract? I would put on the skids and do a little more research on what you want from your woodland and how to get it. Jumping in with someone that "you have not heard anything bad about" might not be the thing to do.  When those trees are gone, they are gone. Do it right.

[Jeff]

You should have cash in hand BEFORE a tree is cut. Cutting on shares is risky at best. Basswood markets are volitile, sometimes being worth next to nothing.  If the guy gives you a rough time because you want to wait and make sure you are doing the best thing for your forest, then you KNOW he aint the one.

[victorytea]

Thanks Jeff and Gary- I know more now.  The logging operation only took one day and 36 trees were taken in all, mostly basswood, a few hard maples and a couple of hickorys. Mainly I wanted to get the basswood out of there to allow room and light for some more worthy trees.  I rode back on my Ferguson and monitored the process.  I should have posted well before he came and then I would have been able to follow your advise.  The only problem I have is the the skidder operator worked too quickly and scraped up more trees than I would think necessary. The logger is coming on Friday to pay me my "half", he said (before he started the job) between 1000 and 1500 dollars.  The basswood, he said, only brings $250 a thousand but the maples bring about a dollar a foot.  I will let you know how it comes out. Paul F B  

[Ron Scott]

Yes, let us know if all went ok. Are damages being paid for your skinned trees in excess? It sounds like you might have had a tree length harvest. Were you paid for the pulpwood and topwood also?

[victorytea]

Ron;
 Don't know what you mean on a couple of points. What is "tree length harvest"- Pulpwood and topwood  (the tops were left and if I chose to cut them up, I can of course).  I wouldn't know how to ask for skinned trees in excess compensation, It seems like that would be difficult to assess .  I do appreciate your advice and that from the others.  I am glad this is a small job and when I do a harvest in 15 years or so I will be much more dilligent about the contract etc.  It seems to me that if they had cut the logs into trucklength before they brought them out that less damage would have occurred.  They seemed to have the attitude that everything had to be done rapidly.        Paul F B

[Ron Scott]

Paul,

Tree length logging is where the total tree or long tree lengths are skidded from the cutting area to a landing for processing into sawlogs and pulpwood sticks. It sounds like that is what was done.

[victorytea]

Well- I feel like a *DanG idiot!  The guy took all the logs and said he'd be over Friday AM to settle up.  He didn't show and today I tried to call him- the phone's off the hook.  Do I have any recourse for dealing with this thief.  I'm so *DanG angry I feel like I could shoot him.  Please help.      Paul        

[robotguy]

 wow,,, this should be required reading ,,, when i start-up i will REQURE payment up front,  better to have trees still standing and growing that gone and empty hands ..  learn a lot each time i check-in on the forum    

[Jeff]

Maybe he got busy. Keep after him like a flea on a dog for the next few days.

 If he dont settle up soon, or gives you the idear that he dont plan on it,  I'd be glad to give him a call and mention some organizations we can contact and lists we can put him on. ;D

[Gary_C]

Don't get too mad yet. He probably has not been paid for the wood so he does not know how much you should get. Most of the time when you deliver wood to a large mill, the quickest you will get paid is the end of the following week and that is only if you are on the direct deposit system. Just don't let him forget you are still waiting.  

I don't know why some people make promises they know they will not keep, but as they say, "the road to h*** is paved with good intentions."

Even if you had a contract there is probably little you could do at this point. The best thing you could do is to write down everything and take pictures of the work done. Write down everything you remember and especially times, how many trees, what your verbal agreement was, etc.

Gary

[Ron Scott]

Hopefully you will get paid as agreed to and won't need an attorney and a professional consulting forester to help recover any losses.

[victorytea]

Still haven't heard from him, though I left 2 messages on his "message phone".  Apparently the phone wasn't off the hook as I suspected but he uses his landlady's phone for people to contact him.  I would like to thank you guys for being supportive despite the fact that I went about this in an ignorant, impulsive manner.  For now, I will continue to try and contact him.  I wrote some things down as someone suggested and will take pic's tomorrow if I don't hear from him.        Paul

[SwampDonkey]

I have a couple contractors that I do work for quite often and sometimes they say they'll be over at such a time and maybe they don't show. But, I know the guys well and they never try to stiff me at all. Sometimes they have to travel someplace for parts and might be a couple days before they settle up. I never get excited over it. The guys gotta keep the machinery going since they have men under them and I got other work to attend to each day of the week, rather than worry over the exact time they can make it to settle up. Never had to wait longer than 2 weeks and I always have work contracts for jobs. Just don't get impatient. ;)

cheers

[Ron Scott]

Ditto! I've found that when loggers say "tomorrow", it's usually "two weeks" from tomorrow.

[victorytea]

today I went to his residence and (since he was not at home) left a note for him to call me at work. No call.  I left messages on his "message phone" answer machine all w/e- no call.  I am going to give this guy until Friday, just in case there was a miscommunication about which Friday, and then I am going to start some sort of legal action.  Today I took pictures of the trees that were damaged just getting the 36 trees out. Tomorrow, I suppose, I should get pic of the stumps.  I know you guys are sympathetic to loggers and I can understand that- most are honest, hardworking individuals doing a very dangerous job.  It is guys like this that make landowners so leery of the honest logger.
He was referred to me by a very good friend who met him at the local VFW and felt he was an honest logger.We had a handshake agreement, which is the way things are often done in this rural community. I am very much in love with this little piece
of land I own and plan to pass it on to my son.  I can only say that right now I feel like I've been raped.  I feel like taking the law into my own hands, but know that is not the way to go.  If anyone has any further tips on legal procedures, let me know.  I plan to call a detective friend of mine to see if I can just have him arrested.   Probably not, but I would like to make it so difficult for him that he will never do this to a trusting landowner again.  Paul

[trouter]

Whatever you do dont give up, drive the guy crazy so that he pays you just to get you off his back.  We had a experience some what like this years ago at our mill, a logger was bringing in logs that were not holding out right for us. Since we do not have scales at the mill we could not be sure what was going on so one day he brought in a load, we got a local guy to haul it to a scale and found out he was screwing us on weight, next time he came in we took the slip and the truck still loaded to the scales.  That was the last time we ever saw him, sad part is we never got our money out of him, so there is a nice tractor running around that should have our name on it instead of his.

[Kirk_Allen]

If you dont hear from him by Friday I would suggest a trip to the county court house to have a sit down discussion with the prosecuter.  Depending on their work load they may jump on the case and and take criminal action OR they more than likely will tell you what you have is a breach of contract case, which is a civil matter.  With what little information I have it appears someone stole your timber while you watched.  Thats not all bad!  Your the witness to all those involved in the theft.  If the prosecuter has had other complaints in the past that he thought were civil issues, another case with the same issue may just push him to take action.  The key is going to identify a crinimal law that was broken.  If you can somehow identify this persons intent, which is tough, it would make things easier for the prosectuion.  In some cases, it pays for you to do ALL the legal research and have it ready for the prosecuter.  If they have to research stuff they tend to push things on the back burner or push you to a civil court.

They like High Profile in most cases.  Turn this into a High Profile Political Environmental issue and you may turn his head so that he will run with it.

Breach of contract cases are quite common and they dont have to be on paper.  We had a case several years ago that involved an old parnter who imbezzled over $500,000.00 from our company.  He had even illegaly sold some of our stock and manipulated the books.  We had a clear case of securities fraud at a minimum but the Feds told us since the dollar figure was under 1,000,000 dollars they recomended we take civil action.  Needless to say I lost a lot of faith in our criminal justice system after that.  We did persue civil action and won but at a cost to us financialy and the only thing we gained was the recovery of this persons stock.  

[Buzz-sawyer]

Well.........
two thoughts,
 in my area (I am registered logger/buyer) what you describe IS the norm, most loggers ARE NOT good guys and it hurts my buisiness some,

he may just be off slashing up some more logs and be giving no thought to your "Little DEAl", in other words it is way bigger deal to you than him , and he may be plannig to pay you................

In Illinois we have special laws governing situations like yours, and they are felony violations, timber theft....Kirk gives good advise and I probably would do that as well as , first calling DNR and tracking down the criminal unit and get thier input and get them shaking his tree,  he can only log and sell with thier permission....there is the key, it is primarily in rhier juristriction

I would make sure he knew your intentions before starting all out war....if you wanna see your money, in civil cases the winning may only mean you are usually going to get  nothing , and cause him to do it over under a new name in the next county......

[victorytea]

Thanks again guys, I really appreciate the support in this surprisingly stressful time in my life.  I'm almost 60 and my wife's pregnant- on top of everything else going on.  I talked to my detective friend who, unfortunately, works in a different county and he said he would talk to his DA to determine what law has been broken.  He thinks there may be a felony supported by a fairly new law to protect the homeowner.  He gave me much the same advice that I have gotten on this forum.  Given that he hunts out here, he is willing to do some of the "legwork" for me.  I still have not heard from "Shane" the logger but I had my pictures developed today and they came out fine.  I did call the VFW to speak to Shane but he hadn't arrived yet.  I left my work number but again- no call.   I would like to ask Buzz-Sawyer- what exactly is the DNR?  I agree totally with the idea of letting him know my intent,i.e. legal action before I do anything and would prefer (by far) just to "share" the profit from the logs harvested.  Thanks again guys.      Paul  

[Buzz-sawyer]

Department of Natural Resources

[Buzz-sawyer]

Department of Natural Resources
Go to NY state site and search for logging and get some info
Don

[Brian_Bailey]

I would get in touch with the NYS Dept. of Enviro. Conservation.

Here's a link   http://www.dec.state.ny.us/website/protection/index.html

Good Luck

[victorytea]

Thanks for the link Brian.  I found article 155 of the State Penal Law signed by Gov. Pataki in 1997.  I printed the page and will take it to the DA if need be. I really hope this guy shows up on Friday.