Tree Disputes QLD: The QCAT Tree Orders Register and What Sellers Must Disclose

If you are buying a Queensland property and there is a QCAT tree order over it, the seller has to hand you a copy before you sign. If they do not, you can walk away from the contract right up until settlement, get your deposit back, and bill the seller and the agent who prepared the contract for your legal costs.

Most buyers never check. It takes about thirty seconds on a public register that almost nobody knows exists. Here is how to search it, and what a tree order actually does to you if you inherit one.

How do I search the QCAT tree orders register?

QCAT maintains a public register of tree orders covering orders made under the Neighbourhood Disputes (Dividing Fences and Trees) Act 2011. It is free and anyone can search it.

You can search by:

• Suburb
• Street name
• Order name, which looks like NDR019
• The name of the applicant or respondent in the matter

The register tells you who is responsible for carrying out the order and the timeframe they have to do it. Orders appear on the register within 14 days of being made.

What the tree orders register does not show you

This is the part that catches people, and it is the reason a clean register search is not the end of the job.

The register only lists finalised orders. It does not list pending applications. If your neighbour lodged a tree application last month and QCAT has not decided it yet, the register will come back clean.

For pending matters you have to request a search of the register of proceedings through QCAT separately. On a property with mature trees close to a boundary, that second search is the one worth doing.

Does a seller have to tell you about a tree order?

Yes. Section 83 of the Act is blunt about it: if you are selling land affected by a tree application or a tree order, you must give the buyer a copy before the buyer enters into the contract of sale, unless you have a reasonable excuse.

The maximum penalty is 500 penalty units. A Queensland penalty unit is $172.70 from 1 July 2026, so that is a theoretical maximum in the tens of thousands of dollars for not handing over a document you already have.

What happens if the seller does not disclose the tree order?

Section 86 gives the buyer a termination right, and it is a wide one.

• The buyer may terminate the contract at any time before it settles, by giving the seller or the seller’s agent a signed and dated notice of termination stating that the contract is terminated under that section.
• The seller must refund the deposit within 14 days.
• The seller and the person who prepared the contract are liable to the buyer for the reasonable legal and other expenses the buyer incurred after signing. That liability is joint and several.

Read that third point again if you are a real estate agent. The Act does not just make the seller liable. It names whoever prepared the contract, and makes each of them liable for the whole amount. A buyer who has paid for searches, a building and pest inspection and legal advice can send that bill to either of you.

And there is no cure. Once the contract is signed without the disclosure, the buyer holds a termination right they can exercise on the morning of settlement if the market has moved.

What happens if the seller does not disclose and it settles anyway?

Section 87 keeps the seller on the hook. Where an order was made before the contract, the seller did not give a copy, and the seller has not finished the work by the transfer day, the seller remains personally liable to carry out the work even after ownership has passed to the buyer.

So the seller does not escape by settling. They just end up owing work on a property they no longer own.

What does a tree order mean if you buy the property?

If the seller does give you a copy of the order before you sign, the obligation transfers with the land. Under section 85, on the transfer day you become bound by the order as if you were the original tree-keeper, to the extent the seller has not already done the work. Any period the order gives for doing the work starts again from the transfer day.

That is better than it sounds. You get the full period, not whatever the seller had left. But you are the one paying an arborist.

If the seller gives you a copy of a pending application rather than an order, section 84 does something different again: you are joined as a party to the QCAT proceeding the moment you enter into the contract. You have bought a lawsuit along with the house.

Who is the tree-keeper?

In most cases the tree-keeper is the registered owner of the land the tree is growing on. Not the person whose roof it hangs over, and not the person whose gutters it fills. If the trunk is on your land, the tree is your responsibility.

Can I cut my neighbour’s overhanging branches?

Sometimes, and there are two limits that both have to be met. The branches must overhang your land by more than 50cm and be less than 2.5m above the ground.

If both apply, you can either cut them yourself at your own cost and keep the cuttings on your side, or use the formal route:

• Give your neighbour a Form 3 notice for removal of particular overhanging branches.
• The notice must give them at least 30 days from when they receive it to remove the branches.
• Ask for at least 1 day’s written notice of when the work will be done.
• If they do not act, you can arrange removal and recover the cost from them, capped at $300 a year.

That $300 cap is the number people are surprised by. It is a contribution, not a reimbursement. A large removal will cost you several thousand and you will recover $300 of it.

When will QCAT make a tree order?

QCAT is the last resort, not the first step. It can make an order where the tree has caused, is causing, or is likely within the next 12 months to cause:

• serious injury to a person
• serious damage to land or property, or
• substantial, ongoing and unreasonable interference with a person’s use and enjoyment of their land

You are expected to have tried to resolve it directly first, and to have given the formal notice where the overhanging branch process applies. Turning up at QCAT having never spoken to your neighbour is not a good look.

What orders can QCAT make about a tree?

QCAT can order that a tree be pruned, maintained or removed, that work be done at a stated time or repeatedly, that a survey or an arborist report be obtained, and that one party pay for it. It can also order compensation for damage already caused.

An order can bind future owners of the land, which is exactly why the register and the disclosure obligation exist.

Selling a property with a tree dispute in Queensland

If there is an application or an order affecting your land, the safe sequence is short:

• Get a copy of the application or order.
• Give it to the buyer before they sign, not with the contract, and not after.
• Keep proof of when you gave it to them.
• If you can finish the work before settlement, do it. It removes the issue entirely.

Disclosing does not kill your sale. Failing to disclose gives your buyer a free option to walk away up to the day of settlement, which is a far worse position to be in.

What real estate agents need to know about tree orders

Your exposure here is direct and personal, not just the seller’s:

• Ask every seller with mature trees whether there is a tree application or order. Do not wait for it to come up.
• Search the QCAT tree orders register at listing. It is free and takes a minute.
• If there is an order, make sure the buyer gets a copy before signing and that it is documented.
• Understand that section 86 makes the person who prepared the contract jointly and severally liable for the buyer’s costs if disclosure was missed.

The tree dispute traps we see

• The register came back clean but there was a pending application. The register only shows finalised orders. Search the register of proceedings as well.
• The order was disclosed with the contract rather than before it. The Act says before the buyer enters into the contract. Attaching it to the contract the buyer signs is too late.
• Nobody checked who the tree-keeper is. Trunk on the boundary, or on council land, changes who has to act.
• The buyer assumed the seller would finish the work. Unless the order is complete by the transfer day, it becomes the buyer’s job under section 85.
• A vegetation protection order was confused with a tree order. They are different instruments from different bodies, and a council VPO can stop you doing work QCAT has ordered.

How Empire Legal handles tree disputes on a conveyance

On a purchase we check whether the property is affected by a tree order and make sure you have seen anything the seller was required to give you before you signed. On a sale we make sure disclosure happens in the right order, so a buyer cannot use a missed document to exit a contract months later.

Fixed fee, and we will tell you plainly when a tree issue is a negotiating point rather than a reason to walk.

Talk to Empire Legal before you sign. A tree order found before the contract is a conversation. Found after, it is a termination right.

This article is general information only and is current at 8 August 2026. It is not legal advice and does not take your circumstances into account.

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George Sourris. Empire Legal.

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Ladies and gentlemen, please keep in mind that all advice is general in nature and does not constitute legal advice. This is authorised by George Sourris, Empire Legal, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

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Note: all information is general in nature and as each matter is unique please contact our office for tailored advices: the above does not constitute legal advice.