Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Apr 29, 2020 1:13 pm Hi all, I am an owner of a home (in QLD) and there is a retaining wall between my neighbours property, and a fence on top. The wall is 600mm high and wouldn't have needed a development approval, so I cannot find history on when it was done. House is 30 years old, although it's likely this wall is less than 10 years old. Some photos here: https://imgur.com/a/8UqCPC0 It appears from my view that my land would have been cut and the retaining wall would have been put there to support his land. Does that mean, I am benefiting from this wall and am 100% liable to repair/maintain? Any thoughts or feedback? To replace the entire timber wall with concrete sleepers/steel posts is $6500 and I dont want to spend legal, survey or engineer costs unless absolutely necessary. Thanks in advance Re: Retaining wall - maintenance query 2May 01, 2020 11:10 pm Generally, if the ground surface in one property is reduced to below that of the neighbouring property, it is the owner of the lower property who is obliged to protect the boundary as they have undermined it. If the neighbour had raised the level of their property they would be obliged to retain the soil to prevent encroachment onto your land. Do you think both properties were developed at the same time with current layout? I'd have at look at Nearmap images and see if they are of any use, maybe chat to neighbours about their obligations if similar layout, perhaps a cheap identification survey would help. Local councils have all sorts of information available as well. If you are obliged to protect boundary and DA isn't needed why not do it yourself? If you can dig (or can hire some labour to dig) a 150-200mm wide hole to 1.2m depth you could replace that wall incrementally with I-beams and whalers for a fraction of the cost. If you can cope with losing 200mm or so round the edge you wouldn't even need to remove the existing wall. A concrete and steel wall for $6500 to replace a deteriorating 0.6m high wooden wall seems a bit .....excessive. Re: Retaining wall - maintenance query 3May 02, 2020 11:47 am Just thinking out loud here but being 600 high means that you wouldn't need council approval but probably best to talk to your neighbour because whatever you put there would have to support his side hence it's more beneficial for them to get it fixed. It's more of an aesthetic solution for your side than anything. Also don't want water to flow on to your block either. Gabion that you can get from Bunnings prob cheap enough or else you can look into something like durawall Thank you again Simeon.. I will call my certifier for that. Have a good day 4 5179 2 7191 There is no reason why building contract reconciliation cannot be done prior to handover, if the builder won't do it get someone to do it for you. Why would you pay for… 3 6687 |