Whether you live regionally, in a big house with a backyard, a city apartment, or a townhouse in the suburbs, differences and arguments with neighbours can possibly arise.
According to Barbara McDonald, Professor at the University of Sydney Law School, neighbourhood disputes regularly occur due to the nature of common complaints and our living conditions.
“I think wherever people live closely together, there will be neighbourhood disputes. And sometimes neighbourhood disputes arise even when people are not very close together, you know, even when they're a kilometre apart or something like that, because noise can carry across an empty space, and a neighbour might block or obstruct entry to somebody else's land in some way.”
Sometimes, a neighbour’s act or omission can be a nuisance. But under Australian common law, it is not enough for a behaviour to be annoying, to constitute what is called a ‘private nuisance’: a dispute between two individuals.
If a court is asked to formally resolve an issue, it will consider several factors, including if your complaint is trivial or unreasonable.
For example, your neighbour playing loud music in the middle of the night or doing building work outside the approved hours can amount to a private nuisance.
Or, if you change the water course on your property and create an unnatural flow onto your neighbour’s property, that can also lead to a complaint.
But it always depends on the context of your surroundings. Prof McDonald explains.
“Other examples have been keeping animals that attract flies. I mean, obviously this wouldn't be the case if you were in the country and farming areas, but it probably would be the case in an ordinary residential district. A lot depends on the standard of comfort that can be expected in the particular neighbourhood. That is an important criterion for whether or not something amounts to a nuisance.”
