Everyone wants to be good neighbours and when they aren’t, life can be hell. It’s not until something goes wrong with a tree, fence, noisy dog, noisy neighbour or retaining wall that relationships can turn sour.

Fences are the No.1 cause of disputes among neighbours. The Dispute Settlement Centre of Victoria (DSCV) found that 38 per cent of the neighbourhood disputes were over fences.

A timber fence that was erected 40 years ago when the land was subdivided may now be showing signs of rot. According to the law, neighbours have to come to a solution on a “sufficient dividing fence” and pay half each.

Disagreements arise when neighbours are deciding if it should be fixed, replaced, what the colour or height should be and the cost. One neighbour may think it would be fine to fix a few palings, while the other may want the whole side replaced.

Problems also arise with agreeing to what is “sufficient”. The fence may need to be higher for one neighbour due to privacy, or to contain a pet. If one neighbour wants a fence that is more expensive, then they have to pay more than the other neighbour, which again can lead to arguments.
Find out about your rights under the law and remedies with fencing – HERE

Amanda Hickey is a mediator and helps neighbours come to a resolution. She finds many fencing disputes are about where to erect them and getting a surveyor to determine the exact boundary line, which costs money that no one wants to pay.

“You find older people stay in their house for a long time. They seem to be attached to their fences and they have a whole story about why it should be in spot X but it’s in spot Y,” she says.

Noise complaints come in second place as a cause for frustration for neighbours.
In NSW, 18 per cent of all neighbourhood disputes handled by the Community Justice Centre (CJC) were noise-related and of those, 57 per cent were barking dogs.

If the noise is late at night or very loud and excessive, the police can be called. But what if the dog barks every morning when the owners leave for work?

What if the neighbour’s child starts to learn the drums and plays every afternoon when the nearby baby is trying to sleep?

Power tools in the early morning and air conditioners running all night are other causes of friction.
And of course there is the endless barking and carry on from some unneighbourly dogs.
Find out about what you can do about neighbour noise – HERE
And crazy out of control dogs – HERE

The third largest cause of friction among neighbours is trees. In Victoria, complaints concerning trees account for 17 per cent of all disputes. A jacaranda planted 15 years ago may look lovely until the branches start growing over the neighbour’s fence, blocking views.

In 2017, of all NSW tree disputes, 68 per cent were applications concerning a tree causing damage to a property or injury to a person, while 32 per cent were applications concerning a hedge severely obstructing sunlight or views.
Even a beautiful jacaranda tree can cause neighbourly disputes.
Also, root systems don’t adhere to property boundaries. Roots can grow under fences and disrupt the pipes of neighbouring households.

There are no simple rules about who is responsible for pruning or cutting down a tree that affects neighbours, which can cause more disagreements.
Check out your legal rights and remedies concerning trees and fences – HERE

Adrian Mueller is a strata lawyer and finds the fourth, and the most difficult, dispute among neighbours is retaining walls.

The lack of legislation and the expense to fix a retaining wall means neighbours can spend a long time in court trying to come to an amicable resolution.

“They take a long time as there is a lot at stake. If it is about to collapse, one day there is a big storm and it comes crashing down,” he says. “The clock is ticking, it is not covered by insurance and no one wants to pay for it.”

With thanks to Melissa Gerke

There are always lots of neighbour issues when you live in an apartment.

The people upstairs come home when the pubs shut and then party till 3am every weekend. The nice young woman downstairs goes out to work, leaving her little dog to yap all day until she comes home. The young fellas on the floor below clearly have never learned what their stove is for, so every night is barbie night – preceded by the ritual burn-off of old fat, the smoke and stink from which pours into your apartment.

“Ah, well, that’s apartment living,” you tell yourself as you turn up the volume of your stereo to full “doof” to drown out the sound of the 12-year-old next door practising her clarinet for an hour every evening. By the way, your music is now keeping the shift-working nurses on the other side awake.

Is that really what we have to put up with when we live in apartments? There should be some give and take, but there are also limits

Most states have laws that would curb the weekend party animals regardless of where they lived. After midnight you can call the cops and your neighbours could be fined and even have their stereo gear impounded.

And there are by-laws in apartment blocks that limit excessively loud music all day, not just late at night. That includes little Miss Clarinet squeaking her way through the first few bars of Rhapsody In Blue.

The yappy dog is almost certainly breaching by-laws, not to mention local council ordinances. The barbie boys are creating a nuisance (although proving it may be tricky).

In fact, all of these scenarios involve some breach – some of them several – but who wants to be the apartment block grinch by complaining?

Do you really want to bump into the blokes from downstairs, now seriously undernourished because their landlord has ordered them to ditch the barbie? Are you prepared to wear the guilt of ruining a child’s musical ambitions (or, at least, her parents’)?

Taking The Middle Ground
However, there may be a compromise and the way to achieve that is by talking. The people above, below and next to you have no idea how loud the noise they are making sounds in your flat.

The blokes downstairs have no concept of where their barbie smoke goes and how bad it smells when it gets there (OK, they’re not that bright). The woman whose dog barks while she’s at work, doesn’t know … she’s at work, after all.

That said, talking isn’t always an option because no one likes to be confronted by an irritated neighbour at their front door. And in some blocks you can’t even get to other floors, anyway.

However, the anonymous note is a particularly irritating form of communication.

So a friendly chat before you complain has to be a better option. And perhaps the way to open the discussion is to offer a gift with a note attached.

A card saying: “Can we talk about your barbecue …?” attached to a box of chocolates or bottle of drinkable red will at least show you are not the negative namby-pamby nimby they might otherwise assume you are.

To be fair, there are people who live in apartments whose response will be “I can do what I want in my home and if you don’t like it, tough…!”

In which case, you have been given licence to unleash the “dogs of strata” war, in the form of by-law breach notices, complaints to the police and letters to landlords if they’re tenants. However these by-laws are difficult to implement and notices to offenders often lead back to mediation before they are heard in a court.

What can a body corporate do in these cases?

If a body corporate believes that an owner or occupier is breaching the by-laws, the body corporate can speak to the owner or occupier informally to try to fix the issue.

If that doesn’t work, the first formal step under the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 is for the body corporate to give a by-law contravention notice to the person it believes is breaching the by-laws.

The decision to give a by-law contravention notice can be made by the committee, or the body corporate at a general meeting.

The body corporate usually cannot take action to enforce the by-laws until it has sent a by-law contravention notice.

The body corporate can give a ‘continuing contravention notice’ to an owner or occupier if it believes that they are breaching a by-law, and it is likely that this will continue.
(So that first contravention notice acts as an official warning for that owner to remedy the situation.)

An example of this type of breach is where an owner has made a change to the outside look of their lot without the approval required in the by-law or they have an animal that is constantly annoying other residents because of its noise.

The purpose of the notice is to ask the person to fix the problem within a certain time.
The notice must:

♦ say that the body corporate believes the person is breaching a by-law
♦ detail the by-law that the body corporate believes is being breached
♦ explain how the by-law is being breached
♦ set a time period for the person to fix the problem
♦ explain that if the person does not comply the body corporate may:
◊ start proceedings in the Magistrates Court
◊ make a conciliation application (mediate the matter).

The body corporate will need to fund any legal fight and costs can mount, so again the conciliation/mediation pathway is probably going to be the least costly. Of course, you do need the cooperation of a potentially stubborn neighbour in this case.
(BTW You may get costs awarded if you win but such an award may not cover all your legal costs.)

With thanks and acknowledgement to J Thomson for his contribution to this post.

Barking dogs, problem fences, loud noise and disgusting smells from neighbours?
Check out all the solutions, and your legal rights HERE.

Seen these new shops popping up at your local Westfield?
You know, the ones that sell these baby spaceships called drones. My goodness I’ve already got two in my local mega mall.
What indeed is all this frenzy about having  a drone?
I know there’s an incessant and never ending hunger for new tech gadgetry in today’s society, but what is the benefit, or perhaps thrill, of actual owning one of these drones.

 Well it turns out that that owning one is more a cheap thrill rather than a benefit (if you know what I mean). Complaints to local councils and police are on the increase from neighbours who feel their privacy has been invaded by this new age sticky beak, and the salacious perks it can provide its’ pilot.

It all reminds me of a flat I lived at in the Sydney CBD many moons ago.
There was a guy that everyone in the complex referred to as “Merv the perv”.  Mervin was apparently a master when it came to spying on his neighbours at all hours of the day and of course, the night. He had two telescopes that never seemed to be pointed to the stars and always seem to have a pair of binoculars at hand when out of his balcony during the day. Residents would often comment on the need to “keep the blinds drawn” or you might end up being the latest prize for old Merv’s wandering eyes.

Alas, the simple advice to keep one’s blinds shut doesn’t seem to translate well in the age of the high tech sticky beak (or perv) with their camera eyed drone.

What can you do if you’re being annoyed or spied on by a drone?

Well I hate to say this but we have some of the weakest privacy laws in the first world and because of this your protection against unauthorised surveillance is limited.

The Privacy Act, for instance, only applies to organisations like big companies or individuals with an annual turnover of $3 million or more. It’s fair to say that most recreational drone owners wouldn’t meet that criteria.  The Act also applies to government to limit them in the information they can collect about us.
The drafters of our wishy washy privacy law seem to have forgotten that neighbours and individuals can also be a real pain and that from time to time and we do sometimes need privacy protection from them.
So unless the drone pilot is working for an organisation or is an individual with at least $3 million in annual revenue, it is not possible for a you and I to take action against an individual drone pilot under the Privacy Act as it currently stands.
Only handy I guess if your privacy is being interfered with by a big corporation or the billionaire next door.

You might like to consider your state based ‘surveillance legislation’ but that can be good, bad or indifferent depending on which state you’re in.  For example, some actions by drone operations can be considered criminal offences. In Queensland, it is illegal to record somebody without their consent if they are in a private place or conducting a private act.
A private act can include showering, going to the toilet, making love or getting dressed. It is also illegal to record somebody in a public place where privacy might be reasonably be expected, such as the change rooms of a public swimming pool.

However in Victoria, taking video footage, without recording audio, of what is happening out in the open in your neighbour’s backyard does not contravene the Surveillance Devices Act.
Go figure eh, and this lack of uniformity state by state on surveillance laws doesn’t make these laws helpful when it comes to the dreaded drones. Check your state based surveillance laws HERE to see whether they will be of any help to you.

 You could also look at whether anti-stalking laws can be applied, but if it’s just a creepy perving neighbour, that won’t be stalking.
The only authorities that will look at complaints in this regard are the police or the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner 



Pilots of larger drones must be registered
Pilots of commercial drones weighing 2kg or more need to be registered with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and have an operator’s certificate before their unmanned aerial vehicles go zipping through the public airspace.
But with smaller recreational drones – the ones you can now buy at retailers across Australia, no registration is required.
So if it’s a particularly large spaceship hovering over your house or pool, its pilot must be registered.

Does Trespass Apply?
If you want to pursue a civil claim through the courts, and you’ve got the money and the time, trespass is available without having to demonstrate you suffered any loss or damage as a result of any action by either the drone or its operator.
Trespass involves an interference with your rights to ‘private enjoyment’ to land (which includes your house and the land around it, like a backyard or acreage).
To prove a trespass you have to be able to prove the following:
Exclusive possession – this usually means that you are living or staying on the land and are lawfully able to stop other people from entering. Owners, renters and boarders are generally in exclusive possession. If the area is a public place such as a park next to your house, you may not have exclusive possession over the park.
Land – this includes the space above and below the physical ground. So a drone that repeatedly flies over your house can be a trespass unless it flies so high that it is unnoticeable.
Intentional or negligent – to be a trespass, the interference has to be either deliberate or careless (meaning the person was negligent). This depends on the actions of the drone operator and what you observe the drone doing.
Interference – this means that a trespass has to occur ‘directly’ and cannot be a result of something else happening. You also have to prove that the interference was unreasonable or that it continues to interrupt your normal enjoyment. A drone that flies over your house, hovers around your windows or breaches your privacy would probably be found to be unreasonable.

Under what circumstances can you complain to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority?
Well if the drone…
♦ was flying close to people or 
♦ flew over the top of you or
♦ was flying near an airport or
♦ was flying near a helicopter landing site or
♦ was flying at night or in fog or
♦ you believe the person flying the drone couldn’t see it or
♦ the drone was flying too high (above 120 metres)

Then CASA can handle this through their online complaint service. They are not interested in complaints about a drone’s noise (local council for that one) or sticky beak things. 
Here’s the LINK to file a complaint.



And finally if you think a drone is being piloted with little regard to the safety of your good self (or your fellow citizens), here are the rules for drone pilots:


• You must not fly your drone higher than 120 metres (400 ft) above the ground.
• You must not fly your drone over or near an area affecting public safety or where emergency operations are underway (without prior approval). This could include situations such as a car crash, police operations, a fire and associated firefighting efforts, and search and rescue operations.
• You must not fly your drone within 30 metres of people, unless the other person is part of controlling or navigating the drone.
• You must fly only one drone at a time.

If your drone weighs more than 100 grams:
• You must keep your drone at least 5.5km away from controlled aerodromes (usually those with a control tower)
• You may fly within 5.5km of a non-controlled aerodrome or helicopter landing site (HLS) only if manned aircraft are not operating to or from the aerodrome. 
• You must only fly during the day and keep your drone within visual line-of sight.
This means being able to orientate, navigate and see the aircraft with your own eyes at all times (rather than through a device; for example, through goggles or on a video screen).
• You must not fly over or above people. This could include festivals, sporting ovals, populated beaches, parks, busy roads and footpaths.
• You must not operate your drone in a way that creates a hazard to another aircraft, person, or property
• You must not operate your drone in prohibited or restricted areas.

So the next time you’re out by the pool and you suddenly find a mini spaceship giving you a wink, you’ve got all the information to work out what is best to do.
Of course you could also have a chat to your neighbour as to why they find your speedos so fascinating.

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Noisy dogs? Crazy neighbours? Bad smells next door? Tree problems?
Find out more about dealing with difficult neighbours HERE