# Forum Home Renovation Fences & Screens  Do I need a permit for 1.8m front fence?

## drewy

Hi all.  I have currently a front fence that is 1m tall and I want to extend it to 1.8m tall.  My council (whitehorse city council, in melbourne) requires any front fences over 1.5m tall to have a building permit (which requires plans to be drawn and $$$$$). 
My questions is, if I go ahead and just extend the front fence to 1.8m tall without going through all the hassle of applying for permit etc. is this illegal and what happens if council finds out?  I have seen many front fences over 1.5m tall and I am sure I have never seen them applying for permits. 
My other question is, if I were to get a professional fencer to extend up my fence, would they normally apply for permits from council or they just go ahead and build the fence? 
Thanks

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## Cheltenham3192

Hi drewy, When I was looking at higher fences, one contractor told me I was to apply for the permit and he would require a copy before commencing. In the end we decided that we didn't need the height. 
In my Council (Kingston City Council in Melbourne) I think there are higher fence limits if you are on a major road too. 
I also had a similar situation with needing a building permit for a shed I was considering putting up.  However, when i spoke to a experienced Council officer he stepped me through the form and told me which lines to ignore and what was acceptable to write for a simple case.  The forms are designed to suit all sorts of applications and you may not need to provide all the information, or you might get away with a sketch (as I would have, showing where it was to be positioned). I've been in to Council's building department many times and you get much more helpful service during the day in their quiet periods. 
What you can't avoid are the fees...(although we erected two small sheds to avoid needing to apply for a permit for one large one).

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## drewy

hi, thanks for the reply.  I will consider going to council tomorrow and speaking to them directly. 
Cheers.

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## Eastwing

> hi, thanks for the reply.  I will consider going to council tomorrow and speaking to them directly. 
> Cheers.

  1.5m unless you live on a main road.

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## Lexi01

I went through the same thing in our first house. 
We were on a corner block and the house was built at the back corner of the block meaning most of our usable yard was out the front so everyone and their dog could see us having a BBQ... 
I approached the council with plans, photos of surrounding houses (to prove our higher fence wouldn't be out of character with the neighborhood) and $440 & 2 months later I had a permit... ours was double as we had to get 2 permits: 1 for higher than 1.5m and a second for higher than 1.5m on a corner block??? It had to go to 2 separate departments of course... 
Now, although I wouldn't condone it I have a mate who was in the same position who just put his fence up without a permit. When his neighbors came over for a sticky-beak he just complained about the cost of permits, etc and they just assumed he had one. 
Its an option?

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## Moondog55

Built it to the legal  non-permit maximum and then run a wire across the top and plant a hardenbergia. 
Anything to avoid giving any government agency a bunch of my hard earned cash

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## Haveago1

We had similar issues in wanting to 'courtyard' our front yard and was limited to a 1.5m high fence with significant infill panels required. 
We did not want to lose the space, but one of the options I was considering was to have a standard 1m high masonary fence, and a 1.8m high fence one meter further back in the yard - the space in between being an extra wide raised garden bed. Not sure what the Philadelphia lawyers would make of it but it would possibly be aruagble it is not a boundary fence but a screen as it is substantialy within the yard area

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## Wombat2

> We had similar issues in wanting to 'courtyard' our front yard and was limited to a 1.5m high fence with significant infill panels required. 
> We did not want to lose the space, but one of the options I was considering was to have a standard 1m high masonary fence, and a 1.8m high fence one meter further back in the yard - the space in between being an extra wide raised garden bed. Not sure what the Philadelphia lawyers would make of it but it would possibly be aruagble it is not a boundary fence but a screen as it is substantialy within the yard area

   :2thumbsup:  :brava:   :Harhar:

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## president_ltd

Stonnington council here, 1.5m is the 'standard' that does not require any permit etc. 
we asked for 1.8m, paid our fee and submitted a 'sketch' of what we wished to do (basically two photos, one 'before fence', the other of what it would look like after-fence, basically a photoshop/powerpoint mockup of painted white pickets at 1.8m as seen from footpath & opposite side of road. 
they approved it within a couple of days for up to 2.0m. 
did the posts at 1.95m, pickets at 1.8m going 'up' to the post height at the very ends. 
council were pretty good about it.

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