One more concern: If the neighbor goes bankrupt, you may have to remove the excavation at your own expense.
Normally, something like that falls within my area of responsibility when I act as a "Reichsbedenkenträger," but here the depth of the conceivable risks really surprises me.
It can also happen that, due to the glare from the neighbor’s roof tiles, a large pile of earth is accidentally dropped from a high-flying airplane because the evasive action required to avoid the glare necessitates a different course. Unfortunately, neither the source of the glare nor the (foreign) airplane, whose transponder had failed, can be located. In that case, you will also be stuck with the disposal costs for the additional earth.