Guy Shows Up And Offers To Buy A Tree From My Yard. We Signed A Contract And Now He’s Trying To Back Out.

Hello all. I hope this is the right sub for this question. The tree is in northern Indiana and the tree removal company is based across the border in southern Michigan.

A few days before Halloween last year Jake from Jakes Timber Management (fake name for obvious reasons) had knocked on my door asking if I’d be willing to sell a large walnut in my backyard. I spoke it over with my wife and we decided to take him up on his offer. We signed a contract for total cleanup and payment of $400 to us before the tree was cut. Stupidly I took “Jake” for his word when he left the date to be harvested blank. “About 2 weeks, weather permitting,” he said. At the time I didn’t find this unreasonable since there had been some nasty storms and he needed the tree to make a profit from it.

The neighborhood the tree occupies is older, with our house being over 100 years old. As I had mentioned earlier there had been some nasty storms this past year and many other trees nearby had come down. My wife and I had considered getting it removed but decided we’d have to get it done next year when we could afford it. When Jake showed up it seemed like a no brainer. I’d much rather make $400 than spend $2k.

2 weeks came and past and I didn’t hear from Jake. I have a newborn and pets so I wanted to make sure that I could vacate the house on the day of the harvest just incase something went wrong. I started calling him periodically and got a new excuse every time. Equipment failure, crew is sick, foreman had surgery, etc.

He must’ve gotten tired of me asking because now he’s saying he doesn’t want the tree and our contract is void. Nowhere in the contract does it state that he or his company have the ability to nullify.

Obviously I can’t summon Jake and his crew to come harvest the tree, but I still expect it to be removed as we had signed a contract. There is still the concern the tree may fall and damage our house. If this tree were to fall and damage my house would I have any legal grounds to sue? Conversely if I were to have the tree removed would he be able to sue me?

Location: Northern Indiana