QLD New House, New Fence Dilemma

[Soo Uu]

Hi everyone, I really hope you can help me.
Recently my husband & I purchased a property which has colourbond fencing on two sides of the yard & a very low (about 75cm high) wire fence on the 3rd side.
We have two large dogs who would step over this fence & freely roam the street.
We've knocked on our new neighbours door several times over the past three weeks and no one has answered the door. 10 days ago we left a note in their letterbox explaining about the fence & asked them to call us. No contact has been made. We've also spoken to the exiting owners of our new house of & the neighbours on the other side of them & they don't know where they are.
Settlement is on Friday 21st July & we have lined up a fencing company to install a new colourbond fence on the following Monday. We're not asking for any money towards the new fence from our new neighbours because there's nothing wrong with the existing one - it's just a height issue.
My dilemma is this can we put up a new fence without their permission or do we have to put it up on our side of the existing fence and affectively gift them several cm's of our land down one side of the property?

 

[Tripe]

You are asking a question about a dividing fence between two private properties, this is normally covered by a state based dividing fence act or Boundary act.

Normally a fence in an urban environment needs to be a minimum of 5 foot high and rabbit proof, you need to find the appropriate act for your state.

Most states have a formal process for constructing new fences, which has a standard worded template that you fill out and send to your neighbors, they normally have 28 days to respond, if they fail to respond you can erect a new fence and pursue them through your local court to provide 1/2 the build cost.

If you build an expensive brick fence, the court will most likely require the other neighbor to pay 50% of the cost of a standard Pailing fence.


In summary you can't pull the 0.75m high fence down , without permission from the other neighbor, if you can't work out a compromise, you need communicate with them in writing using your states notice to fence forms.

 

[Soo Uu]

Thank you Tripe, you've been most helpful