What is a tree safety inspection (BVC)?
A tree safety inspection, BVC for short in Dutch (boomveiligheidscontrole), is a visual check of a tree for defects that could cause harm. Per tree you record what you saw and what has to happen, so you can show that you meet your duty of care.
4 min read
What a BVC is
BVC stands for boomveiligheidscontrole, the Dutch term for a tree safety inspection. An inspector walks the trees and assesses each one by eye, from crown to stem base, for defects that affect safety: deadwood over a cycle path, a crack in the stem, a bracket fungus at the base, roots lifting a pavement. The sector calls this way of looking VTA, Visual Tree Assessment.
A BVC is not maintenance and not an inventory. It is a judgement per tree, at one moment, with a fixed outcome: nothing wrong, keep an eye on it, or act. If the inspector sees something that cannot be judged from the outside, a closer examination follows. That is a separate assignment, not part of the inspection itself.
Why you inspect: the duty of care
Whoever owns or manages a tree has a duty of care: you have to take reasonable measures to prevent the tree from causing damage. If a branch falls on a car, or worse, the question is not whether the tree had a defect, but whether you could have known and what you did about it. In the Netherlands liability runs through article 6:162 of the Civil Code, the tort provision.
That is why a BVC comes down to two things: inspecting and recording. An inspection that left no record does not help you afterwards. Per tree you want to be able to show when it was inspected, by whom, what was seen and what you did next. IDA Bomen keeps that with the tree itself: under each value it says which inspection it comes from, when and by whom. There is more on this in the article on the duty of care for trees.
The outcome: three safety classes
Every inspected tree gets a safety class (Veiligheidsklasse). The Dutch sector uses three, and the BVC model in IDA uses the same ones, under their Dutch names:
- Boom zonder gebreken
- Tree without defects: nothing that affects safety. The tree goes along in the next regular round.
- Attentieboom
- Attention tree: a defect that poses no immediate danger but that you want to follow. You inspect the tree more often than the rest.
- Risicoboom
- Risk tree: a defect that needs action. A measure with an urgency belongs to the tree, and the tree stays in view until it has been carried out.
The class is the start, not the end. A risk tree without a measure is a known problem you left lying, and legally that is the worst position to be in.
What you record per tree
Besides the safety class, the inspector records the attributes the judgement rests on. In IDA's BVC model these are the fields tree inspectors know, with the classes from Handboek Bomen:
- Species, stem diameter class and tree height class: what kind of tree it is and how big.
- Condition: how vital the tree is.
- Defects, per part of the tree: crown, stem, stem base and ground level, wood decay or fungi, damage by bacteria or insects.
- Crown clearance: does the crown hang low enough to be in the way?
- Urgency and management advice: what has to happen and how soon.
That last detail is what it is about. A value without a date and without a source is a claim. A value that says which inspection it comes from is a piece of evidence.
From finding to measure
An inspection is only finished once the finding has been followed up. In practice it runs like this:
Select
You decide which trees are in the round: a district, a road section, or every tree whose last inspection is too long ago.
Inspect
The inspector assesses the trees in the field and records the class, the defects and the advice per tree, with photos where needed.
Review
The manager checks the results. Whatever deviates from the register, such as a defect that was not in it yet, you approve or reject before it enters the register.
Follow up
For risk trees and urgent advice you commission work: pruning, felling or a closer examination. Once the work is done, that is on the tree's record too.
The weak spot is almost always between the last two steps. The inspection is done, the report is delivered, and the risk trees sit in a spreadsheet nobody opens again. A tree register that shows which risk trees have not been followed up yet is therefore worth more than one that only shows the classes. In IDA you colour the map by follow-up, so you see at a glance which risk trees are still waiting.
A BVC round in IDA
In IDA, BVC is a standard maintenance model: a form with the fields above, which you can extend as you see fit. A round is a project of type BVC. You pick the trees on the map or with a filter, attach the model and give the inspector access, also when they work for a contractor.
The inspector works in the field on a phone or tablet, without installing anything. The form opens with the previous values already filled in, so they only change what has changed. The form adapts as they go: they only see the questions that apply to this tree. If they see something that does not match the register, they report a deviation, with proof photos. It only enters the register after you have approved it.
After the round, the result sits in each tree's record: the new values, with the inspection as their source, the date and the inspector. The earlier values are kept in the timeline. And per tree you export the timeline as a PDF, with photos and approved deviations: the document you hand over when someone asks what you knew, and when.
Frequently asked questions
No Dutch statute names the BVC. The obligation follows from the tree owner's duty of care: whoever manages a tree has to take reasonable measures to prevent damage, and is otherwise liable under article 6:162 of the Dutch Civil Code. Inspecting regularly and recording it is the accepted way to show that you took that care. With every inspection, IDA Bomen records the date, the inspector and the outcome per tree.
There is no statutory interval. How often you inspect depends on the location (how busy it is under the tree), the age and the condition. Trees with a defect you want to keep an eye on, the attention trees, are inspected more often than trees without defects. Write your policy down and keep to it: that is what counts when questions come.
An attention tree (attentieboom) has a defect that poses no immediate danger but that you want to follow; you inspect it more often. A risk tree (risicoboom) needs action: a measure with a deadline belongs to the tree, and the tree stays in view until that measure has been carried out. The BVC model in IDA Bomen uses the same classes, and on the map you colour the trees by class or by follow-up.
In IDA Bomen, BVC is a standard maintenance model with the sector's fields. You create a BVC project for a group of trees, and the inspector fills in the form in the field, on a phone or tablet. The result then sits in each tree's record, with the date and the inspector.
Read on
Duty of care for trees: what Dutch municipalities record
In the Netherlands the duty of care for trees follows from article 6:162 of the Civil Code. When a municipality is liable, and what you record per tree.
8 min read
Handboek Bomen 2026 and 2022: the Dutch tree standard
Handboek Bomen is the Dutch standard of Norminstituut Bomen for tree work. What is in it, whether it is mandatory and what the 2026 edition changes.
7 min read
Municipal tree management: how a local authority runs it
Municipal tree management runs from policy and management plan to inspection, maintenance and records. The cycle, the roles and where it goes wrong.
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See your own tree inventory in IDA
Send us your tree inventory, as a shapefile, an Excel list or whatever you have, and we will show IDA on your own trees, from your own file to the approval of field work.
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