Little-known laws to tackle Japanese knotweed could land you with a £34k bill. The plant was first imported by the Victorians for its attractive heart-shaped leaves and pollen-rich buds but is now regarded as a destructive scourge on gardens.
The plant is known for killing off native flora and damaging property by forcing its way through the tiniest of structural cracks. It is not illegal to have it growing in your garden and it doesn't have to be declared to the council or Environment Agency.
However, anyone caught putting it in their green or brown bin can be hit with £5,000 fines. You could face the penalty even if you dispose of the plant by accident or without knowing what it is, Stoke on Trent Live reports.
Businesses committing the same offence are liable for £20,000, with directors risking a six-month jail sentence. More common, though, are potential pitfalls for anyone selling their home.
Jason Harker, who runs Japanese Knotweed Expert, has spent more than 20 years clearing the plant from homes and businesses up and down the country. He said: "It's the effect it can have on the value that's a problem and it can really complicate the process of buying and selling. What many solicitors don't tell you is the potential consequences of the TA6 form, which asks you whether there's Japanese knotweed on your property - you can answer 'yes', 'no' or 'don't know'.
"If you select 'no', you need to be absolutely certain there's none growing on your property - or withing three metres of the boundary. By putting 'no', you're accepting all the liability and the average legal claim if it turns out you're wrong is £34,000 for misrepresentation.
"It's not illegal to have it growing in your garden and you don't have to declare it to the council or Environment Agency. But if you let it cross the boundary into your neighbour's garden - even if it's at root level and not visible - that becomes a serious issue."
Mr Harker, who employs nine workers, recommends anyone selling their house to have a survey conducted. He said: "If someone's having to put 'I don't know' on their TA6 form, I'd be telling them they need to be sure.
"On the other hand, they might turn round and say 'you're buying the house; it's up to you to do it. Either way, it's a better option to pay not much more than £300 to get it done than to risk the liability and cost of having to deal with it down the line.
"It's much more common than you'd think. I remember we had one woman in her 80s who actually remembered going to a garden centre with her mum to buy it, then planting it in their garden. Decades later, she was being told it needed to go so she could sell her house."
The firm, based on Stoke-on-Trent, does work ranging from domestic surveys to eradicated the plant from people's gardens and huge industrial jobs, which sometimes involve burying hundreds of tonnes of infested soil underground. Even relatively small outbreaks of around 10 square metres need three to four years of chemical treatment, which has to be administered wearing a full hazmat suit.
However, Mr Harker says it only causes serious damage to houses in a minority of cases. He said: "Everyone talks about it damaging people's homes. It does happen, but it's very rare.
"There was one old house in Wales I remember where it'd grown underneath. It was such an old house the foundations were negligible and the Japanese knotweed had been removed by another company, but a huge void had been left, so the foundations had to be filled in with concrete.
"There was another building in the south of England where it'd somehow got behind the render and was reaching into the wall and pushing the render off. That was a complete re-rendering job that would've cost about £20,000.
"Most often, though, we see it causing minor damage by coming through tarmacked areas outside people's homes, like their driveways.
