Shared boundary fencing: who pays, how high, how far off the line, and when the footing is finished
A landscaping job in the Inner West, around Vaucluse, or in Gordon often starts with the fence. Who pays, where it sits, how high it can be, and whether the old masonry footing can take a new wall are different conversations. Mix them up and you get a neighbour dispute, a Council stop-work, or a wall that leans in the first winter.
This is a contractor’s reading of the Dividing Fences Act 1991 (NSW), the Codes SEPP, and how wind and concrete behave. It is not legal advice and it is not a structural certificate.
1. Who pays
Adjoining owners usually split the cost of a sufficient dividing fence — building one if there is none, or repairing or replacing one that has failed.
Sufficient in a Sydney residential street is typically a timber paling or similar at a normal height for the locality. It is not automatically an 1800 mm bagged masonry wall with piers.
The neighbour does not have to pay half of whatever you want.
Situation | Who pays |
Sufficient fence, both agree | Split |
You want masonry; sufficient would be paling | You pay the difference |
You (or someone you allowed on the land) damaged the old fence | You restore it |
Tenant damaged it | Owner pays the fence, then deals with the tenant |
Part of the fence is a pool barrier | Pool owner pays that part (Swimming Pools Act) |
Neighbour is Council, Crown, a park or a road | Often no contribution — you can still ask |
You build wholly on your land | You pay; it is your fence, not a dividing fence |
You start without notice or an order (and it was not urgent) | Recovery of their half is harder |
Fencing noticeWrite to the adjoining owner (registered post or in person). Say the line, the type of fence, the quotes, the split you want, and a time to answer. Do not start work you want them to pay for until there is agreement or an NCAT / Local Court order — unless the fence has collapsed and the site is unsafe. Then do the urgent work and claim.
Who is “the owner”Strata: the owners corporation for common-boundary fences, not the lot next door, unless the fence is on a lot boundary inside the scheme. Company title and deceased estates need the right signature. If they sell after the notice, liability usually sits with whoever owned the land when the notice was served or the work was done.
Owner’s consent for a DA is separate. The Act can make them pay half a paling fence. It cannot make them sign a development application for masonry on their side of the peg.
2. Where the fence sits
The dividing fence is meant to be on the common boundary. That line is the survey, not the old palings and not the centre of the cracked brick.
Identification survey vs full boundary surveyDC will not mark a masonry footing from a phone photo of a peg. An identification survey is the usual minimum. If the old wall and the title disagree, stop and get the surveyor back before the excavator.
Deliberate setback on your landYou may build wholly on your lot. The neighbour does not have to pay. You still need the planning rules. If the old dividing fence stays, they still need to reach their side of it.
Following the old wallPaddington and Haberfield masonry is often 50–200 mm off title. Rebuilding “on the existing line” can put the new wall over their land. That is an encroachment. Forty years of occupation does not make it the boundary.
How much “off” is toleratedThere is no Codes SEPP allowance of “100 mm either way.” A wall wholly on your side by 50 mm, set out by a surveyor, is tidy. A wall 300 mm on their side is a dispute.
Party wall vs garden fenceA terrace party wall is a different structure and often a different consent. Do not treat a garden dividing fence like a party wall, or the reverse.
Council, lane or park on the other sideContribution is often nil. The fence still has to meet height, heritage and flood rules. Do not assume you can bolt a screen to their rail.
3. Heights and when Council gets involved
Exempt development for a residential side or rear fence in R1–R4 generally means:
1.8 m maximum above existing ground
1.2 m maximum if the fence is masonry
1.2 m on the front boundary or in the primary / secondary road setback
on a slope, steps may reach about 2.2 m at the high end of a step
no barbed wire, no electrified fence, gates must not swing over the street
floodwater must still be able to move
bushfire-prone land: non-combustible materials
A fence 50 mm over is not exempt.
So the 1800 mm masonry courtyard wall is not exempt. It needs a DA (or another lawful pathway), owner’s consent, and usually an engineer.
Heritage and HCAsNot exempt on a heritage-item lot, or along a road boundary in a conservation area. Front fences in Paddington, Haberfield and parts of Woollahra are a character drawing — face brick, height, openness — not a Colorbond run.
Corner lotsThe secondary street is often treated like a front fence: lower, and part-open above 400 mm. The rear half of that frontage can sometimes be solid to 1.8 m. Check the current clause before you quote a high wall to the side street.
Flood lotsSolid masonry that dams overland flow will be refused or forced open. Design the panel and the pier so water can pass.
Bushfire lotsTimber palings may be out. Non-combustible does not automatically mean 1800 mm of unreinforced brick.
Acoustic fence or pool barrier on the same lineTwo codes. The pool owner pays the barrier portion. An acoustic wall is not a “sufficient dividing fence.” Expect to pay the upgrade.
4. Wind, height and when you need an engineer
Sydney is Wind Region A (AS/NZS 1170.2). The site then gets a housing wind class — often N1–N3 — from terrain, shielding and whether you sit on a ridge or an open fetch. Vaucluse clifftop is not a shielded Inner West terrace. A Gordon ridge is not a West Pymble gully.
Wind on a fence is pressure on a sail. Palings leak air. Solid masonry does not.
Get an engineer when any of these are true:
masonry or other solid panel over the exempt 1.2 m
fence on a retaining wall, or acting as a retain
slope, fill or reactive clay
long unbraced run, wide gate or big opening
pool barrier combined with masonry
footing in a tree protection zone
coastal or ridge exposure
you want to reuse an old footing
The engineer sets pier size and depth, steel, block strength, control joints and how the wall ties down. Wind class and soil class are inputs.
5. Retaining, drainage and the ground
If the two yards are at different levels, the thing holding the soil is a retaining wall. The Dividing Fences Act does not automatically split that cost. Whose fill made the step usually decides it.
Behind masonry: an agricultural drain, weep holes that actually weep, and a surface that does not dump the neighbour’s roof water into your trench. Reactive clay plus a wet face is how a “good” footing rotates in five years.
ServicesDial Before You Dig before the excavator. Sewer, gas, NBN and stormwater live on Sydney boundaries. A strip footing through a sewer junction is not a fence quote.
TreesThe Act does not authorise cutting the neighbour’s roots or their canopy. AS 4970 still applies. An 1800 mm strip footing through a structural root zone can kill a tree Council required them (or you) to keep. Pier-and-beam or a fence wholly on your land may be the only legal wall.
6. Rebuilding on the existing footing
Possible when all of this is true:
an engineer has seen it, not only the bricklayer
it is on the correct boundary
it is wide and deep enough for the new height and the current wind class — a 1200 mm wall footing is not automatically good for 1800 mm
cover to steel is intact; bars are not rusted to wire
no systematic crack through the concrete, no step between pours, no void underneath
drainage still works
roots have not lifted it
the new wall is no heavier, higher or more of a sail than the wall the footing was built for — or new piers make up the difference
Do not reuse it when:
the wall has rotated
a horizontal crack at ground level opens and closes
a pier has punched or the strip has snapped at a gate
rust has blown the edge off
new excavation has taken away the soil that was holding the toe
you want a solid sail on a footing built for a pierced screen
the footing sits in the structural roots of a tree that must stay
“It stood for forty years” is not a design check. A new basement next door and a taller replacement wall change the load.
7. What “the footing is broken” looks like
The footing takes weight down and stops the wall blowing over or sliding. It is finished when it cannot.
In the wall: lean that grows along the run; stepped cracks at a pier; a kicked gate post; a bulge at mid-height; a clean horizontal crack at the first bed joint.
In the concrete: rust and lost cover; a crack right through the strip; two levels in what should be one pour; a bar that disappears into a void; roots in the joint; honeycomb and no starter into the first core.
One cracked pier can be stitched. A strip that has rotated as a unit is a replacement. If DC cannot prove the old footing, we survey, open a pit, and let the engineer write the next pour.
8. Building the wall so it lasts
Control joints where the engineer shows them — not where the brick run looked neat.
Piers or reinforced cores at the spacings in the drawing.
A cap that sheds water; flashing where masonry meets a pier or a house wall.
In an HCA, face brick and jointing to match; bagged block may be a refusal.
Do not hang lights, taps or a steel screen on the fence unless the engineer allowed the load and the wiring is on your side. After handover, whose wall it is matters for the first drill hole.
Old fibro and old paintAsbestos in a fibro fence and lead in old enamel are stop-work items. Test. Licensed removal. Do not chip them into the new trench.
9. While the courtyard is being built
Temporary hoarding and work-zone fences follow the consent hours, not the Dividing Fences Act. Inner West Saturday often dies at 1 pm; Ku-ring-gai machine work may die at noon. Photograph the neighbour’s paving and wall before the pour (dilapidation). Their crack after your compactors is otherwise your crack.
10. Aftercare
Once a dividing fence is built, each owner usually maintains their face. Write that down if the finish is bagged on one side and face brick on the other. Insurance sits with the person doing the work until handover. A condition of consent that names species, height or a tree fence still applies after the neighbour has paid their half of a sufficient fence.
Decision path
Survey the line.
Sufficient paling, or masonry that needs a DA?
Fencing notice if you want a contribution — honest about the upgrade.
Heritage, flood, bushfire, pool, acoustic.
Trees and Dial Before You Dig.
Engineer if solid, high, on retain, on a ridge, or on an old footing.
New footing, or prove the old one.
Build in the hours on the consent.
Cap, joints, drain, photos.
The fence is a legal object, a planning object and a structure. Who pays is the Act. Where it sits is the survey. How high is the SEPP and the DCP. Whether it stands is the engineer and the concrete you can still see.
Replacing a boundary wall with a courtyard?DC works in the Inner West, around Vaucluse, and at West Pymble, Gordon and St Ives. Send the survey, the consent and photos of the existing footing with the enquiry. The quote changes if the concrete is finished.
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