When someone goes on to your land without your permission, or unlawfully interferes with your land, belongings or person, they may be trespassing. Your land includes everything above and below the surface, so if someone burrows under your land or flies over your land, they, too, would be trespassing. Commercial aeroplanes flying over your land at a reasonable height would not be trespassing but a joy-flight pilot needlessly flying low over your property and persistently causing a nuisance might be trespassing. It is also trespassing when someone dumps rubbish on your land, thus depriving you of the full enjoyment of your land.
The law allows some people to enter your land without your permission. These would include:
- the police, if they have a warrant or if they are making an arrest or stopping a breach of the peace or carrying out searches without a warrant;
- the fire brigade, if they are trying to stop a fire (these are the only people who are lawfully entitled to do damage to your property);
- licensed surveyors with a genuine need to carry out a survey from a position on your land;
- pest eradicators contracted by an appropriate body such as the local council;
- RSPCA officers or other authorised inspectors who may have a reasonable belief that someone is being cruel to animals on your property;
- authorised water, gas and electricity meter readers, post office officials, health officers and council officers. If you ask for it, these people must show proof of identity and may only enter your property to carry out their proper duties; and
- under new Electricity Safety (Bushfire Mitigation) Regulations that came into operation on 1 July 2003, an electrical supplier can inspect all private electric lines above the surface of land on your property, except for those parts installed beyond the point at which they are connected to a building or other structure (see 'Bushfires' above).
People may have an implied right to enter your land, for example travelling buyers or sellers, delivery people and visitors. However, if you ask them to go and they do not leave within a reasonable time then they are trespassing (unless they can show that they have good reason to be there).
Someone who had good reason to believe that their goods had been put on your property with your help and without their consent could also enter your property to get their goods back.
Finally, people may be allowed to enter your property if they have rights of entry due to easements and so on: see also Chapter 2 Land and its uses 'Fences' and 'Boundaries'.)
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