The number everybody quotes is not a limit
Search for hedge height rules in Australia and you will be told repeatedly that hedges over 2.5 metres are subject to the law. That is a misreading.
There is no maximum lawful hedge height in New South Wales. What exists is Part 2A of the Trees (Disputes Between Neighbours) Act 2006 (NSW), which allows a neighbour to apply to the Land and Environment Court about a hedge that severely obstructs sunlight or views. The 2.5 metre figure is one of the threshold conditions for making that application, not a cap on growth.
It is also worth flagging that much of the material online about Australian hedge disputes cites the Neighbourhood Disputes (Dividing Fences and Trees) Act 2011, which is Queensland legislation and does not apply in New South Wales at all.
What Part 2A actually requires
Before the Court can make orders about a hedge, the applicant must get past several hurdles. All of them, not some of them.
Two or more trees. A single tree is out, regardless of size.
Planted so as to form a hedge. Deliberate planting in a line or group producing a hedge effect. Self-sown vegetation and trees that happen to be near each other generally do not qualify.
At least 2.5 metres tall. This is where the number comes from.
Severe obstruction. Either of sunlight to a window of a dwelling, or of a view from a dwelling. "Severe" is doing a lot of work in that sentence — mild loss of afternoon sun does not meet it.
A genuine attempt to resolve it first. The Court expects the applicant to have approached the tree owner before filing.
The Court then weighs the interests of both parties, the contribution of the trees to privacy, shade, screening and local amenity, and a range of other considerations. It is not a formula.
What the Court can order
Pruning to a specified height or profile. Ongoing maintenance at a set interval. Removal in appropriate cases. Who pays, which is not automatically the tree owner. Orders are tailored, and outcomes vary a great deal on the facts.
The practical answer
Hedge disputes are among the most bitter and least proportionate neighbour disputes there are, and they are almost all resolvable before anyone files anything.
Talk to the neighbour with a concrete proposal. Most people who let a hedge get to eight metres simply stopped looking at it. A shared cost to bring a lilly pilly or photinia line back to a maintainable height is cheap compared with the alternative, and it usually solves both problems at once.
Community Justice Centres mediate these free of charge across New South Wales, and they resolve a great many.
Keeping a hedge maintainable
The reason hedges become disputes is that they stop being pruned. Once a hedge has grown past the height at which somebody can comfortably work on it, it just keeps going.
Regular hedge and canopy work on a sensible cycle keeps it at a height that suits everybody and costs a fraction of restoring it later. Once a hedge is well over head height it becomes a rigging and access job rather than a shears job, and on a boundary with limited room it can be genuinely awkward.
Related
If it is a single tree rather than a hedge, see neighbours' trees overhanging my property and whose responsibility overhanging branches are. Council tree preservation controls may apply to the hedge as well — see council approval.
This is general information, not legal advice. For hedge reduction quotes across the Illawarra, ring (02) 4210 5885.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a maximum hedge height in New South Wales?
No. There is no general law capping how tall a hedge may be. The 2.5 metre figure that circulates online is not a limit — it is one of several threshold conditions that must all be met before the Land and Environment Court will even consider an application about a hedge. A hedge can lawfully be twelve metres tall if nobody has a successful claim about it.
Does a single large tree count as a hedge?
No. Part 2A of the Trees (Disputes Between Neighbours) Act 2006 requires two or more trees, planted so as to form a hedge. A single tree, however large and however much light it blocks, is outside that part of the Act entirely. A line of trees that grew there by themselves rather than being planted is also generally outside it.
Can I complain that a hedge blocks my solar panels?
Part 2A deals with severe obstruction of sunlight to a window of a dwelling, and with severe obstruction of a view from a dwelling. Loss of output from a rooftop solar array is not obviously either of those, and the case law on it is not straightforward. Get proper legal advice rather than assuming the Act covers it.