Terms

Terms of use

These terms apply to neighbourdisputelawyers.com.au, an informational website about neighbour and boundary disputes in New South Wales. If you do not accept them, please do not use the site.

Last updated: 23 September 2026

Most of what follows exists to make one thing unambiguous: reading this website does not make us your lawyers, and nothing here is advice about your situation.

That is not a disclaimer written to avoid responsibility. Neighbour disputes turn on particulars — where the line actually runs, what your council’s rules say about that tree, what the by-laws for your scheme provide, what has already passed between two households — and a page written for everyone cannot know any of them.

General information, not legal advice

Neighbour Dispute Lawyers is an informational website. Legal services offered through this website are provided by Jameson Law, and we and us in these terms mean that firm.

Everything on this site is general information about neighbour and boundary law in New South Wales. It is not advice, it is not a substitute for advice about your circumstances, and it is not an offer to act for you.

Where a page states a rule, it lists the official sources it relies on. Those sources are the authority and this site is not. If the two ever differ, the official source is right.

Working out how the law applies to you takes a conversation about your facts. How we work sets out what that involves, and our guides are written to help you prepare for it, not to replace it.

Never work out a deadline from this website. If a notice has been served on you, or a court or tribunal has written to you, the date that matters is the one on your own document.

Accuracy and currency

Neighbour law in New South Wales is spread across several Acts and several forums, and the practical arrangements around it change without the Acts changing. A page that was accurate when it was written may not be accurate when you read it.

Where a page carries a review date, treat that date as the limit of what we are telling you. It means the page matched the official sources on that day. It does not promise the page still matches them today.

One live example is on this site. For many years the standard first step in a neighbour dispute was free mediation through a Community Justice Centre, arranged by either party. The NSW Department of Communities and Justice now states that from 1 July 2025 mediation through a CJC is no longer available for disputes other than those referred by NSW Courts or involving incorporated associations. A great deal of material published before that change is still online and still reads as current.

Some things are deliberately left off this site because publishing them invites reliance on a number that moves. Penalties and filing fees are the clearest example: they are indexed or revised, so we point you to the body that publishes the current figure rather than printing one that will quietly go out of date.

Check the Act itself on the NSW legislation website, where the compilation date is shown at the top of the text.
Check what a tribunal or court requires, and what it charges, with that body: NCAT, the Local Court or the Land and Environment Court.
Check anything about a tree, an animal or what may be built with your own local council, because those rules are local by design.
Check that anyone advising you holds a current practising certificate, on the Law Society of New South Wales register of solicitors.

When we become your lawyers, and when we do not

Reading this site does not create a lawyer and client relationship. Neither does sending the enquiry form, and neither does the reply you receive to it.

The relationship begins when three things have happened: we have run a conflict check and found nothing that prevents us acting, we have agreed to act for you, and you have signed the costs agreement we send you. Until that last step, we are not your lawyers, whatever has been discussed in the meantime.

The conflict check matters more than usual in this area. Both households in a neighbour dispute are local, and it is not rare for both to have made an enquiry. That is exactly what the check exists to catch.

Costs are dealt with in writing before work starts. Costs disclosure by a law practice in New South Wales is governed by the Legal Profession Uniform Law, which requires the practice to tell you in writing how its legal costs will be calculated and what it estimates the total will be. The costs agreement is a separate document, and you do not have to sign it the day it reaches you. The Office of the NSW Legal Services Commissioner publishes fact sheets explaining what a disclosure has to contain and what you can do if you disagree with a bill.

What you send us before we act

Keep a first enquiry short. Tell us what the dispute is about, who it is with, and whether anything has a date on it. That is usually enough for us to say whether we can help and what the next step would be.

Material you send before we act for you may not attract legal professional privilege. We also cannot promise to hold it in confidence if it turns out we already act for someone on the other side of your matter, which is what the conflict check exists to find out. Sending a full set of documents with a first enquiry does not speed anything up, and occasionally it creates a problem that did not need to exist.

Take particular care with recordings and photographs of a neighbour or their property. Whether such material may lawfully be made, and whether it may later be used, is a real question. Ask before you gather it.

How information is handled once we do hold it is set out in the privacy policy.

Links to other sites

This site links to New South Wales legislation, to courts and tribunals, and to government agencies, because those bodies are the authority for what they publish. We do not control them, we cannot guarantee a link still works, and we are not responsible for what sits at the other end of it.

If a link has moved, search the same body’s own site rather than relying on a copy of the page somewhere else. Neighbour law information reproduced on third-party sites goes out of date quietly, and a superseded rule reads exactly like a current one.

A link is not an endorsement.

Copyright

Copyright in the text, layout and design of this site is owned by Jameson Law or its licensors, and is protected by the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth).

You are welcome to read these pages, print them and share them for your own use, and to quote a short passage with a link back. Please do not republish a page in full, reuse the copy on another site, or present this material as someone else’s work.

Illustrations and icons may be licensed from third parties and remain subject to the licences they came with. Material reproduced from an Australian government source remains subject to the terms set by the body that published it.

Availability, and what we are responsible for

We take care with what is published here and we work from official sources. We do not warrant that the site is free of error, that it is complete, or that it will be available without interruption.

To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for loss arising from reliance on the general information published on this site. Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies a right or guarantee under the Australian Consumer Law that cannot lawfully be excluded.

Jameson Law’s liability is limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation. A scheme of that kind limits the occupational liability of participating solicitors for the legal services they provide, where the solicitor meets the requirements of the scheme instrument. It is created by statute rather than by these terms, and it is about legal services, not about a website.

Which law applies, and changes to these terms

These terms are governed by the law of New South Wales, and the courts of New South Wales have jurisdiction over any dispute about them.

We may change these terms. The version on this page is the current one, and the date shown at the top is when it last changed. If any part of them cannot be enforced, the rest continues to apply.

If a part of this site is difficult or impossible for you to use, accessibility explains the standard the site is built to and how to report a barrier. We would rather hear about it than have you give up on the page.

How to reach us

Questions about these terms, or about anything published on this site, can go through the contact page.

Enquiries and requests

Through the form on our contact page. Say plainly what kind of request it is so that it reaches the right person.

Who you are contacting

Neighbour Dispute Lawyers is an informational website about neighbour and boundary disputes in New South Wales. Legal services are provided by Jameson Law. Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.