Landowner Revokes Access: A Deed Lawyer's Guide to the New Property Law Act and Your Pipeline

Q: Can a court order a private landowner to accept a misaligned pipeline in Queensland?

Yes. Under section 188 of the Property Law Act 2023 (Qld), courts have the discretionary power to order the grant of an easement where a lasting improvement was made under a genuine but mistaken belief as to ownership of the land. Because that belief concerns ownership, the applicant is often the principal or landowner rather than the contractor. This relief is not a guaranteed right, and courts may consider factors such as the genuineness of the mistaken belief and the balance of convenience before granting the easement.

Q: How does the Property Law Act 2023 handle encroaching pump stations?

For encroachments by a building, broadly a substantial structure of a permanent character such as a pump station or treatment shed, section 185 of the Act empowers Queensland courts to grant an easement or order the affected owner to transfer the affected land to the encroaching owner. Courts will typically require the encroaching party to pay appropriate compensation to the affected landowner if this discretionary relief is granted.

Q: Do the new property laws affect a contractor's ability to lodge caveats for unpaid adjudication debts?

While the Building Industry Fairness Act governs the underlying payment rights, the lodgement and maintenance of a caveat are governed principally by the Land Title Act 1994, and the Property Law Act 2023 modernises the separate requirements for creating charges over real property. Contractors relying on charging clauses should therefore review the validity of both the underlying charge and the caveat, as a failure at either step may result in the caveat being challenged or removed from the title.

John Merlo
7 hours ago
14 min read

KEY TAKEAWAYS

If a pipeline or pump station is misaligned onto adjacent private land, the Property Law Act 2023 (Qld) ("the PLA") empowers courts to order an easement rather than mandating demolition, though this relief remains highly discretionary.
Stopping works to manage an access dispute may trigger contractual delay exposures; project managers should carefully assess extension of time entitlements before demobilising.
The abolition of the rule in Pigot’s case means contractors can no longer rely on a principal’s unilateral material alteration to void a construction deed or collateral warranty.
Contractors relying on charging clauses to lodge caveats over a developer's land to secure unpaid adjudication amounts must satisfy the caveat requirements of the Land Title Act 1994, while the Property Law Act 2023 separately modernises the rules for creating charges over real property.

The surveyor’s urgent phone call confirms what you suspected when the adjacent landowner barricaded the site: 20 metres of your freshly laid sewer main encroaches onto private property. With an excavator sitting idle, a furious property owner threatening trespass, and the superintendent's practical completion deadline looming, you are caught between a contractual rock and a proprietary hard place. Demobilising will bleed your margin, but forcing the issue risks an injunction. Navigating a pipeline misalignment requires fighting on two fronts simultaneously. The good news is that this is recoverable, and the order in which you act matters enormously. This article shows you how the newly commenced PLA can turn a demolition threat into a negotiated easement, how to protect your delay claims up the chain while you do it, and why your construction deeds no longer fall over on a technicality.

Immediate Triage When Pipeline Alignments Traverse Unauthorised Land

The surveyor has just flagged that 20 metres of newly laid sewer main encroaches onto an adjacent private parcel, and the landowner has barricaded the site. The immediate commercial decision is whether to down tools and demobilise or force the issue, while the clock ticks on your contractual completion date. At this stage, you need to know how to lock down the work zone without compounding your trespass liability, while simultaneously preserving your contractual rights up the chain.

The Initial Site Assessment: Halting Works vs Claiming Delay

Halting works and securing the site boundaries is the critical first step to prevent escalating trespass liability. Continuing to excavate once you know the land is unauthorised transforms an operational mistake into a deliberate incursion. You must lock down the work zone and formally request the principal to provide lawful access or issue a direction. Do not begin backfilling or attempting to re-route the trench before the superintendent assesses the situation.

When a pipeline alignment error is confirmed on a Queensland project, securing the site and immediately notifying the superintendent is the practical trigger to crystallise the delay event.

If the original surveyor’s pegging was flawed or the principal provided inaccurate spatial data, the site issue may, depending on the terms of your particular contract, constitute a latent condition that warrants a variation, provided you preserve the physical evidence before taking remedial action.

Navigating Extension of Time Entitlements During Access Disputes

Warning: Stopping works to manage a revoked access dispute may trigger severe liquidated damages exposure if you fail to administer the head contract correctly. This clause only protects you if you comply strictly with the notice provisions and hit the deadline. Even if the principal's faulty design caused the misalignment, courts may uphold liquidated damages if the contractor fails to issue a formal extension of time claim, though the outcome can turn on the operation of the prevention principle and whether the contract provides an effective extension of time mechanism. This contractual protection may be limited by strict notification windows; missing the deadlines under these time bar clauses can frequently defeat an otherwise valid claim for relief. You should issue the notice of delay to the superintendent the moment the landowner revokes access, clearly stating that the third-party land dispute is preventing the progression of works.

The Threat of Mandatory Injunctions for Removal of Infrastructure

Expert insight: A private landowner seeking an equitable mandatory injunction to compel the immediate removal of a misaligned pipeline can pose a catastrophic commercial risk to a project. Courts may exercise discretion to grant such injunctions if they assess that the encroachment causes ongoing, irreparable harm to the property owner's rights.

In practice, the injunction is rarely the landowner's real objective — it is the lever. What we see is the interlocutory application — an urgent, pre-trial court application — filed early, before anyone has run the section 188 relief argument under the PLA, precisely because the timing asymmetry favours the landowner. You are staring down the cost of unearthing a commissioned main; they are risking the value of a boundary sliver. That gap is where the pressure gets applied.

The tactical error contractors make is treating the first solicitor's letter as an opening position and sitting on it. Silence reads as either indifference or an admission you have no statutory answer. The stronger play is to signal early — in correspondence, not just internally — that you intend to seek relief regularising the encroachment, which reframes the dispute from "if it comes out" to "what compensation is fair for it to stay."

Settlements at this stage tend to land on a negotiated easement plus a compensation figure, often well above the raw land value once loss of amenity and the landowner's legal costs are folded in. Expect the number to be inflated by the injunction threat itself; the discount you are buying is certainty and avoided demolition risk. Getting your survey evidence and a preliminary view on the statutory relief prospects in order before you sit down materially changes the anchor you can hold.

Separating Contractual Delay Entitlements from Statutory Property Relief

Resolving an encroachment crisis means running two separate legal battles at once. You must manage your head contract exposures with the principal to secure time and money, while separately addressing the property dispute with the aggrieved landowner to prevent a demolition order. This section clarifies where your contractual obligations end and where the state's property laws take over.

The Head Contract Exposure Pathway vs Statutory Land Relief

Your contractual relationship with the principal is entirely distinct from your statutory and tortious liability to the adjacent landowner. The construction contract governs extension of time claims, variations for re-routing, and superintendent directions regarding the worksite. However, the contract does not bind the private landowner. The resolution of the actual physical encroachment is governed by the state property framework, specifically the PLA and the common law of trespass.

A superintendent's direction under a construction contract cannot override a landowner's proprietary rights under Queensland property law.

If a superintendent directs you to continue excavating on land where access has been revoked by the titleholder, following that direction exposes you directly to trespass liability, as the principal cannot contractually authorise you to breach third-party property rights.

Deploying Equitable Defences Against Demolition Orders

While the new statutory framework provides primary relief, common law equitable defences remain relevant when a landowner seeks a court order to demolish the encroaching infrastructure. Defences such as laches (unreasonable delay in asserting rights) or acquiescence may support an argument that the demolition order should be refused.

If a landowner stands by and watches an excavator dig a trench and lay a pipeline across their boundary for three weeks without objecting, and only complains after the trench is backfilled, courts may consider this acquiescence — a failure to object while knowingly letting the works proceed. Successfully deploying these equitable defences turns on proving that the landowner, knowing of both the encroachment and their own rights, stood by and allowed the contractor to incur the expense of the works; delay alone, without that knowledge, is more properly the province of laches. Even then, outcomes rely heavily on judicial discretion.

How the New Property Law Act Addresses Misaligned Infrastructure

When negotiations fail and the landowner refuses a commercial settlement, the modernised relief provisions of the PLA become your primary defensive tool. The legislation provides specific mechanisms that may allow you to regularise the encroachment and avoid the catastrophic cost of unearthing newly commissioned water assets. This section outlines how to leverage those statutory pathways.

Securing Easements for Lasting Improvements Under Section 188

Section 188 of the Property Law Act 2023 (Qld)—the Act being the primary legislation reforming property rights in the state, which commenced on 1 August 2025—provides targeted relief for infrastructure built on the wrong land. If water infrastructure is constructed on land in the genuine but mistaken belief that the party building it (or the party on whose behalf it is built) owns that land, the works can be classed as a "lasting improvement." Under section 188, where a lasting improvement is made on the wrong land under such a mistaken belief as to ownership, the court has statutory power to order the grant of an easement to regularise the infrastructure. It is important to note that the relevant mistake is a belief about ownership of the land, not merely an error in survey pegging or alignment; framing the encroachment squarely within that ownership-belief requirement is essential to bringing an application within the section.

This has a practical consequence for standing: a contractor building under a construction contract generally knows it does not own the land, so the natural applicant under section 188 is more often the principal or landowner, a person acting on the landowner's behalf, or, in some cases, the relevant local government. Identifying the correct applicant at the outset is therefore a threshold step, not an afterthought.

Section 188 of the Property Law Act 2023 (Qld) empowers courts to grant an easement over affected land as a remedy for lasting improvements made under a mistake of title.

Instead of issuing an injunction to rip up the pipeline, the court can compel the landowner to grant an easement, effectively legalising the alignment. This statutory relief is designed to prevent the disproportionate economic waste of destroying valuable civil infrastructure due to a boundary error.

In practice, this is your strongest card, but it is discretionary, not automatic — so treat it as something you build, not something you assert. From the moment the error surfaces, you should be documenting the genuineness of the mistaken belief as to ownership, the date you stopped work, and the comparative cost of tear-out versus the landowner's actual detriment. Those are the exact facts the court will weigh, and they are far more persuasive assembled contemporaneously than reconstructed months later.

Applying Section 185 to Encroaching Pump Stations

Where the misalignment involves an above-ground structure that qualifies as a building—broadly, a substantial building of a permanent character—a different section of the Act applies. While a buried pipeline will often be characterised as a lasting improvement, this is a question of characterisation rather than a matter the Act settles; by contrast, physical buildings like treatment sheds or pump stations are dealt with as structural encroachments. Under section 185 of the PLA, for structural encroachments, courts possess powers to grant easements or transfer land instead of mandating removal.

This provides contractors and principals a direct statutory pathway to resolve boundary disputes where a pump station's concrete footprint crosses the title boundary. As with underground pipelines, the court has broad powers to order that the affected landowner transfer the affected sliver of land, or grant an easement over it, to the encroaching owner, typically coupled with an order that the encroaching owner pay financial compensation to the affected landowner.

Factors Queensland Courts May Consider Before Granting Relief

The nature of the mistake: Courts may consider whether the works were carried out under a genuine but mistaken belief as to ownership of the land, as deliberate encroachments are less likely to receive relief.
The balance of convenience: The court may weigh the financial devastation of unearthing the infrastructure against the actual practical detriment suffered by the landowner.
The conduct of the parties: Courts often examine how quickly the contractor stopped work upon discovering the error, and whether the landowner unreasonably delayed raising the issue.
Appropriate compensation: If an easement is granted, the Act empowers the court to order compensation for loss or damage; in practice, drawing on established authority, that assessment has often reflected the value of the affected land and any loss of amenity.

Because relief hinges on these discretionary factors, engaging an experienced Queensland litigation lawyer early is what turns a promising argument into an evidenced one — well before you are on the back foot in court.

A Deed Lawyer's View: Surviving Unilateral Alterations to Construction Deeds

The same soured project that produced your encroachment is exactly the kind of deal where a principal starts hunting for a technical way out of its own commitments. Property disputes routinely expose how loosely a head contract or collateral warranty was executed, and the new PLA dramatically shifts the risk profile if the principal has made unilateral, material alterations to a contract executed as a deed. This section explains how the legislation removes a technical loophole that previously allowed altered deeds to be voided.

Why Section 60 Removes the Technical Loophole for Altered Deeds

Expert insight: Historically, the rule in Pigot’s case was less a shield than an escape hatch, and it surfaced most often when a party wanted out of a deed the commercial deal had already soured on. The classic pattern was a party trawling back through an executed deed of collateral warranty or a deed of novation, finding a handwritten interlineation, an altered date, or a marked-up defects period, and arguing the whole instrument had been avoided at law — not because the change prejudiced them, but because the technicality handed them a clean exit.

It was rarely litigated to judgment. Its value was in the threatened pleading. Raise Pigot’s case in a letter of demand, and a principal chasing enforcement of a warranty deed suddenly had to weigh the risk that the entire instrument was worthless, which softened them at the negotiating table well before trial.

Section 60 of the PLA removes that lever. Under section 60, a material alteration made to an executed deed will no longer automatically render the instrument void under the common law. The abolition is confirmed by the Act itself, and the accompanying Explanatory Notes address the removal of the rule; if you intend to quote the Notes directly, confirm the wording against the source before publication.

The practical shift is this: the argument no longer travels to the whole deed, so you cannot use one unagreed edit to walk away from obligations you never disputed. Note too that the abolition is not confined to alterations made after commencement — the transitional provision applies section 60 to a material alteration whether it was made before or after commencement, so you cannot bank on the old rule for a legacy instrument. The fight now narrows to the specific altered term and whether it was ever agreed.

Preserving the Enforceability of Collateral Warranties

Example: Consider a scenario where a water infrastructure contractor finish executing a deed of collateral warranty for the mechanical components of a new pump station. After the contractor signs and seals the document, the developer’s project manager crosses out the 12-month defects liability period and writes in "24 months" without the contractor's consent. Under the old law, that alteration might have voided the entire warranty deed. Under the new statutory framework, section 60 of the PLA ensures the deed itself remains fully valid despite the alteration, and the contractor remains bound by the original warranty obligations. Whether the contractor is bound by the unagreed 24-month extension is a separate question, governed not by section 60 but by ordinary principles of contractual consent: because the extension was inserted without the contractor's agreement, it would not form part of the binding bargain.

Securing Payment and Charging Clauses Under the New Framework

Resolving the encroachment and validating your deed means nothing if the principal ultimately refuses to pay your progress claims. When escalating a payment dispute, you must ensure your security mechanisms are valid under the applicable frameworks. This section explains how a charging clause and a caveat fit together when securing adjudication debts against the developer's land, and where the Property Law Act 2023 and the Land Title Act 1994 each apply.

Procedural Requirements for Contractor Caveats and Charges

The Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 (Qld) ("the BIF Act") remains the primary statutory vehicle for enforcing progress payments in the Queensland construction industry. Contractors relying on charging clauses within their contracts to lodge caveats over a developer's land—a common tactic to secure unpaid debts—should be aware that the mechanics of lodging and maintaining a caveat are governed principally by the Land Title Act 1994 (Qld) ("the LTA"). Separately, the Property Law Act 2023 (Qld) modernises the requirements for mortgages and charges over real property, so where a charging clause is intended to operate as an equitable charge, its creation and enforcement should now be reviewed against both frameworks.

Contractors seeking to enforce charging clauses via caveats in Queensland must satisfy the caveat requirements of the Land Title Act 1994 and, where the charge itself is engaged, the modernised charge provisions of the Property Law Act 2023.

Failing to satisfy the caveat formalities under the Land Title Act 1994, or to validly create the underlying charge, could render the security ineffective, leaving the contractor as an unsecured creditor if the developer faces insolvency.

Navigating Payment Security Post-Adjudication

Warning: Converting an adjudication in Queensland into a registered charge on the developer's title involves strict deadlines and complex jurisdictional crossover. If you are considering suspending water infrastructure works and lodging a caveat, be aware that the developer may initiate urgent proceedings in the Supreme Court of Queensland to have the caveat removed. Seeking independent legal advice before lodging a caveat can help ensure the charging clause is validly triggered and the applicable statutory requirements are met, mitigating the risk of adverse costs orders for lodging an unsupportable caveat.

Conclusion

That idle excavator and the barricaded site line represent a critical juncture for your water infrastructure project. While the initial shock of a 150-metre sewer main encroachment naturally sparks fears of catastrophic tear-out and relay costs — a figure that can run well into six or seven figures once demobilisation, re-commissioning, and delay damages are folded in — the situation is no longer governed by the rigid property doctrines of the past. As we have seen, resolving this standoff requires a bifurcated approach: strictly administering your head contract to secure time, while leveraging the state's modernised property framework to regularise the boundary.

You now know that the PLA provides a discretionary, statutory safety net. Under sections 185 and 188, Queensland courts hold the power to grant easements for both lasting improvements and encroachments by buildings, offering a viable alternative to mandatory demolition. Because section 188 turns on a genuine but mistaken belief as to ownership, early advice should confirm who the correct applicant is—often the principal or landowner rather than the contractor. Furthermore, the abolition of the rule in Pigot’s case means your underlying construction deeds and collateral warranties will not fall over on a technicality just because a principal made a unilateral alteration.

Before you attempt to negotiate a commercial settlement with the aggrieved landowner, your immediate next steps are to audit your surveyor's alignment data against the cadastral boundaries and formalise your extension of time notices with the superintendent.

But the outcome of an encroachment dispute is rarely decided by the black-letter law alone — it is decided by how well the evidence is assembled and how early the statutory relief position is signalled. That is precisely the point at which specialist advice from an experienced deed lawyer changes the number you settle on, and often whether you settle at all. If you are staring down a barricaded site and an idle excavator, contact Merlo Law today for a confidential discussion before you take another step on the disputed boundary.

FAQs

Can a court order a private landowner to accept a misaligned pipeline in Queensland?

Yes. Under section 188 of the Property Law Act 2023 (Qld), courts have the discretionary power to order the grant of an easement where a lasting improvement was made under a genuine but mistaken belief as to ownership of the land. Because that belief concerns ownership, the applicant is often the principal or landowner rather than the contractor. This relief is not a guaranteed right, and courts may consider factors such as the genuineness of the mistaken belief and the balance of convenience before granting the easement.

Does a unilateral alteration void a construction deed under the new Queensland property law

No, the recent property law reforms abolished the common law rule in Pigot’s case. Section 60 of the Property Law Act 2023 provides that a material alteration to a deed does not, by itself, invalidate the deed or render it voidable. While the deed survives, parties can often still challenge the specific altered terms if they were introduced without mutual consent.

What should a water infrastructure contractor do if a landowner revokes access mid-excavation?

The contractor should halt works on the disputed boundary to minimise trespass exposure and promptly issue a formal delay notice to the superintendent. Securing contractual extension of time entitlements is critical, as property disputes can cause prolonged delays that may otherwise expose the contractor to liquidated damages.

How does the Property Law Act 2023 handle encroaching pump stations?

For encroachments by a building—broadly, a substantial structure of a permanent character, such as a pump station or treatment shed—section 185 of the Act empowers Queensland courts to grant an easement or order the affected owner to transfer the affected land to the encroaching owner. Courts will typically require the encroaching party to pay appropriate compensation to the affected landowner if this discretionary relief is granted.

Can an equitable defence prevent the demolition of a misaligned sewer main?

Equitable defences such as laches or acquiescence may support an argument against a mandatory injunction for demolition if the landowner knowingly allowed the works to proceed without objection. The success of these defences relies heavily on judicial discretion and the specific timeline of when the landowner actually became aware of the physical encroachment.

Do the new property laws affect a contractor's ability to lodge caveats for unpaid adjudication debts?

While the Building Industry Fairness Act governs the underlying payment rights, the lodgement and maintenance of a caveat are governed principally by the Land Title Act 1994, and the Property Law Act 2023 modernises the separate requirements for creating charges over real property. Contractors relying on charging clauses should therefore review the validity of both the underlying charge and the caveat, as a failure at either step may result in the caveat being challenged or removed from the title.

This guide is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For advice tailored to your specific circumstances, please contact Merlo Law