Property Dispute Lawyers in Melbourne

Property disputes cost money every day they sit unresolved

A caveat lodged the day before settlement can freeze a sale worth millions and trap the deposit and the vendor’s bridging loan. Three months of unpaid rent on a commercial lease can sink a landlord’s loan covenants and trigger a guarantor call. A body corporate standoff over a roof leak can poison a building for years and tank unit values block-wide. Property disputes do not get better with time. They get more expensive.

If you are a homeowner, a tenant, a commercial landlord, a retail tenant, an owners corporation committee member or a developer, MK Law acts on your file across Melbourne and Victoria. The first call is free. Call 1800 130 120 today.

In a property dispute, the side that gets accurate legal advice first usually sets the terms of the fight. A precise demand letter, a caveat lodged or removed on the right ground, a lease clause read the way a court will read it: these decide most matters long before a hearing. The party that waits, or guesses, pays for it later.

What counts as a property dispute

Property disputes come in many forms, and our property dispute lawyers in Melbourne have run most of them. The common threads are land, money and a disagreement that will not resolve itself. We handle commercial and retail lease fights, caveats on title, owners corporation and body corporate disagreements, fencing and boundary arguments, co-ownership and partition claims, adverse possession, compulsory acquisition compensation, vendor and purchaser disputes, and off-the-plan contracts that go wrong before registration. Whatever the label, the work is the same: read the documents, find the legal right that fits, and resolve the matter through negotiation where we can and litigation where we must. You can read about the firm before you pick up the phone.

Commercial and retail lease disputes

Lease fights almost always come down to four issues: rent and outgoings, make-good obligations at the end of term, alleged breaches that trigger termination, and the validity of the lease itself. We act for both landlords and tenants because the same legal mechanics run in both directions, and most cases turn on the words in the lease and what each side did when the trouble started.

Retail leases sit under the Retail Leases Act 2003 (Vic), which sets a five-year minimum term, mandates a disclosure statement 14 days before signing, restricts what landlords can claim as outgoings, requires an annual outgoings estimate and audited statement under section 46, and pushes disputes through the Victorian Small Business Commission for mediation before VCAT’s Retail Tenancies List. Outgoings audits often surface charges that were never recoverable from the tenant, and in retail lease disputes tenants can claw back overpaid amounts going back years. Non-retail commercial leases run through the Supreme Court of Victoria or the County Court, depending on the value at stake. Our commercial lease disputes page sets out how we handle rent review challenges, make-good claims, re-entry and lockout disputes, relief against forfeiture, and damages on early termination. Where rent is unpaid and the lease has been validly terminated, we move to recover possession and the arrears in one proceeding.

Your documents usually decide the dispute

Title searches, the plan of subdivision, the lease and its schedules, the section 32 statement, the caveat and the instrument it relies on: these are where a property dispute is won or lost. On the first call we read what you have and tell you which legal right actually applies, whether a deadline is running, and the cleanest path to resolve it. By the end of the call you have a written view and a clear next step, or an honest reason we would not run it.

Get your title and lease read

Caveats: lodging, defending, removing

A caveat is a freeze on dealings with a title. Lodged correctly, it protects a legitimate interest, an unpaid deposit, an unregistered mortgage, a constructive trust, while you sort out the substantive claim. Lodged wrongly, it exposes you to a compensation claim under section 118 of the Transfer of Land Act 1958 (Vic).

If a caveat is sitting on your title and a sale is on foot, you can serve a lapsing notice under section 89A that gives the caveator 30 days to start Supreme Court proceedings or lose the caveat. Thirty days, not 30 business days. Caveat priority arguments turn on who lodged what, and when, and they often involve a great deal of money when two parties are contending over the same title. We lodge caveats, remove them by negotiation or by lapsing notice, and run the Supreme Court applications that follow when the other side fights back. If a caveat on property is what brought you here, start there: it walks through all three removal routes and which one actually fits a settlement date.

Body corporate and owners corporation disputes

Under the Owners Corporations Act 2006 (Vic), an owners corporation can levy fees, enforce rules, sue lot owners for unpaid levies, and be sued for failing to maintain common property. Most disputes fall into one of three buckets: a lot owner refusing to pay levies, the owners corporation refusing to fix a common property defect that is damaging a lot, and committee fights over governance, voting and special resolutions.

VCAT’s Owners Corporations List handles most of these matters at modest cost compared to the Supreme Court. Unpaid fees become recoverable through VCAT once the owners corporation has issued a final notice, with interest at the rate set in the rules accruing from the due date. Body corporate disputes run in both directions, and we act for lot owners against negligent owners corporations, for owners corporations chasing levies, and for committees trying to remove a manager who is not delivering. When a special resolution is on the table, the notice, voting thresholds and minutes have to be right. Procedural defects are the most common reason a resolution gets set aside on appeal. Strata-titled developments carry additional layers of complexity, and our strata disputes page covers the lot owner side of them, particularly common property repairs that nobody in the building will fund.

Fencing and boundary disputes under the Fences Act 1968 (Vic)

A fencing disagreement looks small until you are living next door to one. The Fences Act sets a clear process. You serve a Fencing Notice on your neighbour, identifying the proposed fence, the line, the quotes and the contribution you say they owe. If they do not respond within 30 days, you can proceed with the work and recover their share, usually half, at the Magistrates Court of Victoria.

Most fencing fights are really boundary fights in disguise. If the dividing line is unclear, a licensed surveyor’s plan resolves it. If your neighbour has built on your land, the remedies sit in adverse possession, encroachment under section 84 of the Property Law Act 1958 (Vic), and trespass. We take fencing disputes from the first notice through to a Magistrates Court contribution claim, and we keep neighbour arguments out of court wherever a survey and a sensible letter can do the job.

Vendor and purchaser disputes, including off-the-plan

Contracts of sale go wrong in predictable ways. A vendor fails to disclose a section 173 agreement, an owners corporation special levy or a building order. A purchaser cannot settle because finance was withdrawn. An off-the-plan buyer signs on one floor plan and receives another. Section 32 of the Sale of Land Act 1962 (Vic) gives a purchaser rescission rights for material non-disclosure, and the off-the-plan provisions give further rights where the plan of subdivision is substantially changed before registration. We act for purchasers seeking rescission and return of deposit, and for vendors defending claims and pursuing default damages. Rescission rights are lost if the purchaser acts inconsistently with rescission after learning of the defect, so move fast.

Boundary, co-ownership and partition disputes

Co-owners who cannot agree have a way out. Sections 225 to 234 of the Property Law Act 1958 (Vic) let any co-owner apply to VCAT or the Supreme Court for an order that the land be sold and the proceeds divided, or that one co-owner buy the other out at independent valuation. The application is rarely refused once reasonable attempts to agree have failed, although VCAT will look at whether one party has been carrying outgoings, mortgage payments or capital improvements that should be reflected in the split. We run these for separating couples who held property in joint names, siblings who inherited together, and business partners who bought premises and then fell out. Boundary fights between neighbours follow a different track: usually a licensed surveyor’s plan, a demand letter, and then either consent orders or a Magistrates Court claim for encroachment and trespass.

Retail and commercial lease fights we resolve every week

A locked-out tenant, an arrears notice, a make-good claim that doubled overnight, an outgoings bill full of charges the lease never allowed: retail and commercial lease disputes hit cash flow on both sides of the counter. For retail premises we start with mediation at the Victorian Small Business Commission, then VCAT if it has to go further. For non-retail leases we line the clauses up against the facts and push for a commercial resolution before the legal costs of a court fight outrun the prize.

Talk to a lease lawyer

Compulsory acquisition of land

When a government authority acquires your land or sterilises part of it through a public acquisition overlay, the Land Acquisition and Compensation Act 1986 (Vic) entitles you to compensation for the market value taken, plus disturbance, severance and injurious affection to what is left. The authority’s first offer is rarely the ceiling. We act for affected landowners and business tenants, brief independent valuers, and negotiate or litigate the gap between the offer and the real loss. Time limits apply to claiming and to objecting, so this is another matter where early legal advice protects your rights.

Resolving property disputes without a courtroom

Litigation is the last tool we reach for, not the first. Most property disputes resolve through negotiation, mediation or another form of alternative dispute resolution once each side has proper legal advice and a clear-eyed view of what a court would actually do. Mediation through the Victorian Small Business Commission, a without-prejudice settlement conference, or a sharply drafted demand backed by the law often produces a better result, faster and cheaper, than a contested hearing. Where the other side will not move, or a deadline forces the issue, we file and run the matter hard. The aim is always the same: resolve the dispute on the best terms available, and only spend on litigation when it genuinely buys you a better outcome.

Where we appear

Property disputes move through several venues, and getting the right court matters. We appear in the Supreme Court of Victoria for caveats, injunctions, partition orders and high-value commercial lease claims. VCAT’s Owners Corporations List and Retail Tenancies List handle most body corporate and retail lease matters. The Magistrates Court of Victoria deals with Fences Act applications and lower-value civil claims, and the County Court sits between them on value. Boundary and survey questions sometimes need expert evidence from a licensed surveyor, which we coordinate. Property disputes that overlap with defective construction often run alongside a building dispute, and we manage both threads together so they do not work against each other.

Cost and how we run a file

The first call is free and confidential. If you have a real dispute, we tell you what it is worth, the realistic timelines, and what drives the cost: the forum, the urgency, and how far the other side wants to fight. If the cost of the fight is bigger than the prize, we will say so and usually suggest a commercial settlement path instead. For matters that sit alongside a wider commercial fight, our commercial litigation lawyers run the strategy across the whole file, and you can see the full range of our civil work on the Melbourne civil law hub.

Talk to a Melbourne property dispute lawyer today

Call 1800 130 120 or use the form on this page. We answer evenings and weekends for caveat lodgements and settlement-day emergencies because we know what a frozen title costs by the hour. If you would rather read a little first, the questions clients ask us most often are answered across our frequently asked questions.