邻居的树损坏围栏应该联系谁？ / Who Should You Contact When a Neighbour’s Tree Damages a Fence?

Geoffrey Chen

The first call is not always to the council. First establish whether the tree stands on the neighbour’s private land, your land, or public land such as a street or park. Then separate the tree risk from the cost of the fence.

Route the problem by location

  • Public tree: report it to the local council in NSW or ACT Government/Fix My Street. ACT nature-strip street trees are government-maintained and residents must not prune them.
  • Neighbour’s private tree: write to the tree owner with photographs and propose an arborist inspection or temporary safety work.
  • Unclear boundary: check a survey, title, council map or ACTmapi. Do not infer ownership from the canopy or root direction.

Build four evidence files

  1. Danger: images of lean, broken limbs, collapse or contact with wires. Call 000 for a threat to life and SES for storm assistance.
  2. Causation: a qualified arborist’s explanation of which tree caused or threatens the damage and how.
  3. Loss: the fence’s previous condition, damage, repair quotes and temporary make-safe cost.
  4. Notice: when the owner or government was told and how they responded.

NSW: the Trees (Disputes Between Neighbours) Act provides a Land and Environment Court path for orders concerning pruning, removal, prevention of damage and compensation. Council permits and protected-tree rules still need checking before work.

ACT: ACT Government manages public trees. Private trees are maintained by their owners but may be protected by Urban Forest rules. Before major pruning or removal of a protected tree, check with Access Canberra.

The fence may separately involve dividing-fence contributions, insurance and negligence. Deal first with safety, a shared arborist and temporary repair, then allocate final cost.

This is general routing information. It cannot decide tree ownership, negligence or compensation.

Official sources

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