My question involves real estate located in the State of: New York
About four years ago I planted a maple tree and a couple shrubs mistakenly on my neighbor's property. Last summer, they became quite annoyed with us when we put up a fence to keep our small children and our dog safe from the main road. They don't have a problem with the fence, she just can't stand the grass that sometimes grows up around the bottom of it that I don't trim back to her satisfaction. So, they are installing row of evergreen trees along the entire length of our common border to block out the view of untrimmed grass I guess.
Anyway, we got a letter in our doorway on Monday evening stating that I had until Wednesday to destroy the unathorized and unwanted plantings on their property or they would have them destroyed and they would expect to be reimbursed.
I was able to dig out the two shrubs and patch up the holes as best as I could with the short notice. I called a landscape contractor to see if he would move the tree for me, and he said that by law he needed three days to have the utility company come out and mark the lines before digging. So, I had no choice but to cut the maple tree flush down to the ground, which I did. My other choice was to have my neighbor send me a bill for removing the tree, so I opted to destroy the tree as they asked.
This morning, we received a phone call from my neighbor stating that I left a stump (as I stated, flush to the ground) and that it would grow back so she had her contractor remove it. I also left the area where I removed one of the shrubs quite messy, and her contractor cleaned that up as well, and she will send me the bill for those two items.
So, here's the question: I feel that I acted in good faith by destroying the plantings to the best of my ability as they asked me to do in their letter, especially given the time constraints. (They had done a survey at least two weeks earlier, which means they knew they wanted my plantings removed, but gave me absolutely no time to do it properly.) Am I completely on the hook for restoring their property as it was four years ago, or do I have some hope of winning the dispute when they sue me for not paying that bill.
Thanks!

