An encroachment is a structure that crosses a boundary. An encumbrance is a third party interest sitting on the title. Both decide what a site can actually build, and both tend to surface after a contract is signed rather than before.
Boundary and title questions turn on the specific instrument registered against the specific lot, the specific position of the specific wall, and the law of the specific state. A lawyer reads the instrument and tells you what it binds. A surveyor tells you where the boundary actually is. Between them they decide whether the site carries an injunction that stops construction, a settlement that cannot complete, a redesign that removes a lot, or an easement you did not price. The questions worth putting to each of them are set out near the end.
The legislation, section numbers and case citations below were current at the date of writing. Property law changes, and Queensland’s regime changed substantially on 1 August 2025. Every rule below links to the primary source, and that source is where to confirm the position before you rely on it.
What is the difference between an encroachment and an encumbrance?
An encroachment is physical. An encumbrance is legal. An encroachment is a building, wall, eave, footing or overhang that sits across a boundary and into land you do not own. An encumbrance is an interest that someone other than the registered owner holds over the land, and it shows on the title.
Land Use Victoria’s land registration glossary describes an encumbrance as “an interest in a piece of land by someone other than the registered owner”, and notes that encumbrances place limitations on a property. That definition holds across the Torrens jurisdictions, even though the instruments that create encumbrances are named differently in each state.
The distinction matters because the two are found in different ways and fixed by different means. An encumbrance is found by reading the title and the underlying instruments. An encroachment is found by putting a surveyor on the ground, because a title search will not show you that the neighbour’s garage footing runs 400 millimetres inside your boundary.
The two also interact. Where a court grants relief for an encroachment, one of the common outcomes is a new easement or a transfer of land, which then becomes an encumbrance on somebody’s title. The Queensland regime spells this out directly: under section 185(5) of the Property Law Act 2023 (Qld) the court may order an affected owner to “transfer, lease, or grant an easement or another interest in, the land affected by the encroachment, to an encroaching owner”.
Why do encroachments and encumbrances surface so late in due diligence?
They surface late because the two documents that would reveal them, a full title search with all instruments and an identification survey, are usually ordered after a contract rather than before it.
The commercial pattern tends to run like this. An agent supplies a title search showing dealing numbers but not the underlying instruments. The site is inspected visually. A contract goes on with a due diligence period. Only then does the solicitor order the actual easement and covenant instruments, and only then does a surveyor peg the boundary. By that point the deposit is at risk, the clock on the due diligence period is running, and the negotiating position has moved.
For a developer the practical consequence is that these are gate checks, not clean-up items. An easement running through the middle of a site can move a building footprint, delete a lot, or force a basement redesign. A restrictive covenant limiting the land to one dwelling can end the project outright. An encroachment discovered on survey can hold up settlement while it is either accepted, priced, or litigated.
The other reason for the late discovery is that titles do not carry everything. Planning constraints, contamination notations, heritage listings and cultural heritage obligations generally sit in other registers and certificates. In New South Wales, for example, a great deal of what constrains a site appears on the planning certificate rather than the title, which is why the section 10.7 planning certificate is read alongside the title rather than instead of it.
What does a title search show, and what does it miss?
A title search shows registered interests. It generally does not show where anything physically sits, and it does not show unregistered interests or the content of the instruments it lists.
A typical Torrens title will list the registered proprietor, then a schedule of encumbrances by dealing number and type. The New South Wales Registrar General’s Guidelines describe the encumbrances panel as recording mortgages, leases, charges and covenant charges connected to the dealing. What you get is a reference such as “Easement for drainage 2.5 wide, DP123456”. What you do not get is the wording, the position, the beneficiary, or whether the easement has ever been used.
Three gaps are worth planning around.
The instrument itself is a separate order. In New South Wales, easements, profits à prendre and restrictions on use created with a plan are set out in an instrument under section 88B of the Conveyancing Act 1919 (NSW). The title notes that an instrument exists. Reading it is a separate step, and the wording is where the development consequence lives.
Physical position is not on the title. The title and plan show where the boundary is meant to be. Only a survey shows where the structures are. The gap between the two is exactly where encroachments live.
Some interests are not registered at all. Unregistered leases, occupation licences, adverse possession claims in progress, and statutory charges that arise by operation of law rather than by registration may not appear in a routine search. Caveats do appear, and are worth reading closely rather than treating as noise, because a caveat signals somebody claims an interest they intend to protect. The mechanics are covered in the guide to caveats on property title.
Which encumbrances actually change what you can build?
Not all encumbrances constrain development. The ones that tend to move a feasibility are easements, restrictive covenants, positive covenants and registered agreements. Mortgages and leases matter to settlement rather than to design.
Easements
An easement is a right for one party to use part of another party’s land for a defined purpose. For a developer the relevant question is where it runs, how wide it is, what may be built over it, and who has to consent to any relocation.
Drainage and sewer easements tend to be the most disruptive, because they often run diagonally, because building over them is usually restricted, and because relocation requires agreement from the authority with the benefit. Rights of way and access easements can be equally awkward on tight sites, particularly where a basement ramp wants the same ground the easement occupies.
How an easement reshapes a buildable footprint, what it costs to relocate, and the routes to removal or imposition are covered in depth in the guide to easements and rights of way. The width and purpose are usually described in the creating instrument. Whether you can build above or below the easement is a question of the instrument’s wording and the position of the authority with the benefit, and both need to be checked rather than assumed.
Restrictive covenants
A restrictive covenant is a private restriction that runs with the land and binds successive owners. Single dwelling covenants are the ones that most often end a project, because they can prevent townhouses, dual occupancy or apartments regardless of what the zoning allows.
Removal or modification generally requires a court application. In New South Wales the pathway is section 89 of the Conveyancing Act 1919 (NSW). In Victoria it is section 84 of the Property Law Act 1958 (Vic). The tests and the cost profile differ enough between states that this deserves its own treatment, and it gets it in the guide to restrictive covenants for developers.
Positive covenants and public authority restrictions
A positive covenant requires the owner to do something rather than refrain from something, and it can carry an ongoing cost the feasibility needs to carry too. Maintaining a shared landscaped area, maintaining an on site detention tank, or maintaining a shared driveway are common examples.
In New South Wales, a prescribed authority may impose restrictions or public positive covenants on land it does not own. Section 88E of the Conveyancing Act 1919 (NSW) allows a prescribed authority to impose the restriction or covenant so that it is enforceable by the authority “whether or not the benefit of the restriction or public positive covenant is annexed to other land”. The effect of certain positive covenants is dealt with in section 88F of the same Act.
Where a positive covenant already sits on a site you are buying, the question is not only whether it constrains the built form but who is paying for the obligation over the holding period and after completion. That is a cost line rather than a footnote.
Registered agreements
Several jurisdictions allow a council or authority to register an agreement on title that binds successive owners. In Victoria these are commonly section 173 agreements, which can carry obligations on affordable housing, infrastructure delivery, land management or staging. They read as an encumbrance on the title and behave as a contract, and they are frequently the reason a site cannot be developed the way the zoning suggests.
Mortgages, leases and caveats
These generally do not change the design, but they change the settlement. A mortgage needs a discharge. A registered lease may need to be surrendered, and if it cannot be, the holding period and the demolition programme change. A caveat needs to be withdrawn or removed before a transfer can register, and the party who lodged it may want something in exchange.
How does encroachment law work in each state and territory?
Most Australian jurisdictions have a statutory regime that lets a court adjust the position rather than simply order demolition. New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory each have one. Victoria and Tasmania do not, and the Australian Capital Territory’s leasehold system works differently again.
The common thread is that these statutes give a court a discretion. They do not give either owner an entitlement. That is the point developers most often get wrong: an encroachment is not automatically curable by paying compensation, and it is not automatically fatal either.
New South Wales
New South Wales has had a dedicated statute for over a century. Under section 3 of the Encroachment of Buildings Act 1922 (NSW), either an adjacent owner or an encroaching owner may apply to the court for relief in respect of any encroachment.
The court may make such orders as it deems just with respect to the payment of compensation to the adjacent owner, the conveyance, transfer or lease of the subject land to the encroaching owner, the grant of an easement, right or privilege in relation to it, or the removal of the encroachment.
The Act defines an adjacent owner as the owner of land over which an encroachment extends, and an encroaching owner as the owner of land contiguous to the boundary beyond which an encroachment extends. In exercising the discretion the court takes into account matters including whether the application is made by the adjacent owner or the encroaching owner, the situation and value of the subject land, and the nature and extent of the encroachment.
For a developer, the practical reading is that the identity of the applicant is itself a factor. Applying as the encroaching owner is not the same position as being taken to court by the neighbour.
Queensland
Queensland’s regime moved into a new Act on 1 August 2025. The encroachment provisions now sit in Part 10 of the Property Law Act 2023 (Qld), which replaced the Property Law Act 1974 (Qld).
The definitions are wide. Section 183 defines a building as “a substantial structure of a permanent character” and includes a part of such a structure, giving a wall as the example. Encroachment is defined to include “encroachment by overhang of the building on to the land”, and extends to intrusion on, into or under the soil of the land. Overhangs and subsurface intrusions are both caught, which matters for eaves, awnings, balconies and footings alike.
Under section 185, either an encroaching owner or an affected owner may apply, and the court may make any order the nature of the case requires. The listed examples include a transfer, lease or grant of an easement or other interest to the encroaching owner, an order in relation to land reasonably required as curtilage and for access to the encroachment, an order requiring a plan of survey, an order for compensation, and an order that the encroachment be modified or removed.
One factor in section 185(4) is distinctive and worth noting for development sites. The court may take into account “the operation of the Planning Act 2016, including, for example, the planning scheme under that Act that applies to the land affected by the encroachment”. Planning context is expressly on the list, which it is not in the older statutes elsewhere.
South Australia
South Australia’s regime is the Encroachments Act 1944 (SA). Under section 4, either an adjacent owner or an encroaching owner may apply to the court for relief, and the court may grant or refuse the relief as it deems proper in the circumstances.
The matters the court may consider include the fact that the application is made by the adjacent owner or by the encroaching owner, the situation and value of the subject land, the nature and extent of the encroachment, the character of the encroaching building and the purposes for which it may be used, the loss and damage incurred or to be incurred by the adjacent owner, the loss and damage which would be incurred by the encroaching owner if required to remove the encroachment, and the circumstances in which the encroachment was made.
The Act applies to encroachments made either before or after its commencement, so age is not a bar to an application. The jurisdiction is exercised by the Supreme Court, although the Act contemplates another court exercising the powers in a proceeding where it sees fit.
Western Australia
Western Australia has two separate provisions that a developer generally needs to read together.
The relief provision is section 122 of the Property Law Act 1969 (WA), which sits in Part XIII of that Act, headed “Easements, encroachments and mistake”. Either the encroaching owner or the owner of the adjoining land may apply. The threshold is narrower than in the eastern states: relief may follow where it is proved to the satisfaction of the court that the encroachment was not intentional and did not arise from gross negligence, or, where the building was not erected by the encroaching owner, where the court considers it just and equitable that relief be granted. The orders available include vesting an estate or interest in part of the adjoining land, creating an easement over part of it, or giving a right to retain possession of part of it.
The second provision is prospective rather than remedial. Section 76 of the Building Act 2011 (WA) creates an offence of encroaching onto adjoining land without the consent of the owner of that land or a court order. Practically, that shifts the sequencing on a Western Australian project: consent or an order is a pre-construction question, not a post-construction repair.
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory has its own Encroachment of Buildings Act 1982 (NT), which takes a similar approach to the New South Wales and South Australian statutes. Separately, the Law of Property Act 2000 (NT) provides for statutory rights of user, with section 165 covering their modification or extinguishment.
Much land in the Northern Territory is held under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Cth), a different tenure system where the Torrens assumptions in this guide may not apply at all. That is a threshold question for a lawyer before any of the rest of it is relevant.
Victoria
Victoria has no general encroachment statute. There is no Victorian equivalent of the New South Wales Encroachment of Buildings Act 1922, which means an encroachment is generally approached through trespass, adverse possession, negotiated resolution, or an application to amend title boundaries, rather than through a single statutory relief provision.
Two Victorian provisions come up repeatedly and are worth understanding precisely, because both are commonly misread.
Section 272 of the Property Law Act 1958 (Vic) is headed “Margin of error allowed in description of boundaries”. It addresses discrepancies between the dimensions described in title documents and the surveyed position of the land, and it operates by allowing a small margin, expressed in millimetres for shorter boundaries and as a proportion for longer ones. It is regularly read as a licence to build a little over a neighbour’s boundary. Whether it has that effect on any given set of facts is a question for a lawyer, and treating it as a construction tolerance without advice is a way to acquire a trespass claim rather than a defence to one.
Part IV of the Transfer of Land Act 1958 (Vic) governs applications to acquire title by adverse possession, with the application itself made under section 60 and the limitation period set by the Limitation of Actions Act 1958 (Vic). Long standing fences in the wrong position are the usual trigger, and the outcome can be that the strip of land in dispute is no longer yours to develop.
Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory
Tasmania has no dedicated encroachment relief statute of the New South Wales type. Boundary fence obligations sit in the Boundary Fences Act 1908 (Tas), which the Tasmanian legislation register describes as consolidating the law relating to boundary fences and in particular their erection and repair. Encroachment by a structure is generally approached through the general law and through the adverse possession regime in Tasmanian land titles legislation. A Tasmanian encroachment therefore tends to be a negotiation supported by a survey rather than a statutory application.
The Australian Capital Territory is different again because all land is held on leasehold from the Territory rather than freehold. The Common Boundaries Act 1981 (ACT) deals with boundaries between leased and unleased land, boundaries between two parcels of leased land, dividing fences, and the regulation of party walls, with applications available to the Australian Capital Territory Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Crown lease conditions do much of the work that covenants do elsewhere, so an Australian Capital Territory site check reads the lease as closely as the title.
How does New Zealand treat encroachments?
New Zealand deals with the same problem under the label of a “wrongly placed structure” rather than an encroachment, and the regime sits in the Property Law Act 2007 (NZ).
Section 322 sets out who may apply for relief. The list is broader than the Australian statutes, and covers the owner, occupier or mortgagee of, or the holder of any other encumbrance over, the land affected by the wrongly placed structure, the same parties in relation to the land intended for the structure, any person by whom or on whose behalf or in whose interest the structure was placed, and any person with an interest in the structure. The section applies whether the structure was placed before or after any boundary was fixed.
Section 323 gives the court the discretion to grant relief where it is just and equitable in the circumstances, with orders that can include vesting the affected land in the owner of the structure, granting an easement, giving the owner of the affected land the right to possession of the structure, ordering removal, or ordering reasonable compensation. Relief is not available where the structure in question is a fence and the dispute can be resolved under section 24 of the Fencing Act 1978 (NZ).
On the encumbrance side, New Zealand titles carry easements, land covenants and encumbrance instruments in much the same way. Land Information New Zealand publishes the approved instrument forms under the Land Transfer Act 2017 (NZ), including the encumbrance instrument, the easement instrument and the covenant instrument, and its guidance on land covenants notes that covenants are noted on the register under sections 307 and 307F of the Property Law Act 2007 (NZ) and section 116 of the Land Transfer Act 2017 (NZ). A developer imposing covenants on a subdivision generally does so before each lot is separately disposed of, so that the covenants are carried into the new titles.
Can you force an easement over a neighbour’s land?
In several jurisdictions a court may impose an easement or right of use over neighbouring land where it is reasonably necessary for the effective use or development of your site. This is one of the few places where a development can proceed over a neighbour’s objection, and the conditions are strict.
In New South Wales, section 88K of the Conveyancing Act 1919 (NSW) allows the court to make an order imposing an easement over land if the easement is “reasonably necessary for the effective use or development of other land that will have the benefit of the easement”. The order may be made only if the court is satisfied that use of the benefited land will not be inconsistent with the public interest, that the owner of the burdened land and every other person with an estate or interest in it can be adequately compensated for any loss or other disadvantage, and that all reasonable attempts have been made by the applicant to obtain the easement and have been unsuccessful.
Two further parts of section 88K matter to the budget. Subsection (4) requires the court to provide for payment by the applicant of such compensation as it considers appropriate, unless it determines compensation is not payable because of the special circumstances of the case. Subsection (5) provides that “the costs of the proceedings are payable by the applicant, subject to any order of the Court to the contrary”. The developer seeking the easement generally starts out carrying both sides of the bill.
The third limb tends to be where applications fail. Making a token offer and going straight to court generally does not satisfy it. The first limb turns on what “reasonably necessary” has come to mean in the decided cases, which is a body of authority rather than a phrase with an obvious meaning, and is worth putting to a lawyer before the application is budgeted rather than after.
Queensland has a parallel provision in section 180 of the Property Law Act 2023 (Qld), which allows the court to impose a statutory right of use over burdened land where it is reasonably necessary for the effective use and development of the benefited land. The conditions include that the imposition is consistent with the public interest, that the owner of the burdened land can be adequately compensated in money, and either that the owner has refused unreasonably in the circumstances or that no person with the capacity to grant the right can be found.
The Queensland provision is not limited to permanent easements. It contemplates temporary rights of use as well, which is how a project might obtain a right to enter neighbouring land to install scaffolding along a common boundary. The Northern Territory has statutory rights of user in the Law of Property Act 2000 (NT). Victoria has no general equivalent, which is one of the sharper practical differences between the states for tight infill sites.
For a feasibility, these provisions are best treated as an expensive contingency rather than a plan. The application takes time, the compensation is real money, and the outcome is a discretion.
What about cranes, scaffolding, eaves and awnings?
Airspace above a site is not free. A crane jib swinging over a neighbour’s land, or scaffolding cantilevered across a boundary, can amount to trespass even where nothing touches the ground and nothing is damaged.
Two cases are usually the starting point. In Graham v K D Morris & Sons Pty Ltd [1974] Qd R 1 the plaintiff succeeded in trespass over the presence of a crane jib swinging above her property, and the absence of damage was held not to be a reason to withhold an injunction. In LJP Investments Pty Ltd v Howard Chia Investments Pty Ltd (1989) 24 NSWLR 490 scaffolding erected during construction of a boundary wall encroached into the plaintiff’s airspace at a height of roughly 4.5 metres and protruded around 1.5 metres, and the defendant was held liable in trespass.
The test that emerges is whether the incursion is of a nature and at a height which may interfere with the ordinary uses of the land that the occupier may see fit to undertake. Actual interference is not required. The possibility of interference has been treated as enough, and damage does not have to be proved.
The development consequence is that oversail rights and boundary access are commercial items to be negotiated and priced, not assumptions. On a tight urban site the questions are whether the crane can be sited without oversailing, what a neighbour will want for an oversail licence, whether the build methodology can avoid scaffolding across the boundary, and what the programme looks like if the answer to all three is unfavourable. The alternative methodology is usually slower and dearer, and that difference belongs in the construction programme and the cost plan rather than in the risk register.
Where does this land in the feasibility?
Encroachment and encumbrance risk usually shows up in four places: a reduced yield, a longer programme, a legal and survey cost line, and a compensation payment. The yield effect is normally the largest.
Consider a site bought for twelve townhouses. Held constant across both scenarios below: land at $2,800,000, and a combined allowance of $1,300,000 covering professional fees, authority contributions, marketing, selling costs and finance. Holding that allowance flat means the selling costs are not scaled down with the lower revenue in the second scenario, which makes the second outcome marginally conservative.
Base case
- Gross realisation value: 12 townhouses at $850,000 each, or $10,200,000
- Land: $2,800,000
- Construction: $5,100,000
- Other costs as above: $1,300,000
- Total development cost: $9,200,000
- Profit: $1,000,000
- Development margin on cost: 10.9 per cent
After an easement is properly read
Assume the section 88B instrument is finally obtained and shows a drainage easement running diagonally through the rear of the site, wider than the plan suggested and with a restriction on building over it. The scheme drops to eleven townhouses. Changed inputs, with everything else held at base case levels:
- Gross realisation value: 11 townhouses at $850,000 each, or $9,350,000
- Construction: $4,675,000, being the base case rate applied to eleven units
- Redesign, legal and survey costs: $180,000
- Additional finance and holding over a six month delay: $250,000
- Total development cost: $2,800,000 + $4,675,000 + $1,300,000 + $180,000 + $250,000, or $9,205,000
- Profit: $145,000
- Development margin on cost: 1.6 per cent
One lot and a six month delay take the margin from around eleven per cent to under two. The arithmetic is deliberately simple and the numbers are illustrative, but the shape is the point: a title constraint that costs a single lot on a small project can consume most of the profit, and it does so through the revenue line rather than the cost line. The difference between margin on cost and margin on revenue matters when you are comparing these outcomes, and is set out in the guide on development margin on cost versus revenue.
The general lesson developers tend to draw is that the order of spending matters more than the amount. A full title search with instruments and an identification survey are small numbers relative to a deposit, and they are the two things that convert this category of risk from unknown to priced.
How do contracts handle encroachment and encumbrance risk?
Contracts handle it through disclosure, through due diligence conditions, and through the treatment of what the buyer is taken to have accepted. The last of those is where developers get caught.
Standard contracts commonly provide that the buyer takes the property subject to encumbrances disclosed in the contract. If an easement or covenant is disclosed, even in a schedule the buyer never read, the buyer generally cannot later object to it. That is why disclosure documents are read as development constraints rather than as conveyancing formality.
Queensland changed materially here. The seller disclosure regime introduced by the Property Law Act 2023 (Qld) applies to contracts and options entered into from 1 August 2025, subject to exceptions, and shifts what a seller must put in front of a buyer before a contract is signed. What that regime requires in a given transaction is a question for a Queensland lawyer, and the Act is where to confirm the current position.
A due diligence clause is the usual mechanism for reserving the right to walk. What that clause covers, how long it runs, and whether it is satisfied at the buyer’s discretion or on objective grounds all determine whether it is worth anything when a survey comes back badly. The drafting differences are covered in the guide to land surveyors for developers, which also sets out what an identification survey is and is not.
Three questions tend to separate a workable position from a nominal one. Whether the due diligence period is long enough to obtain the actual instruments, not merely the title search. Whether it is long enough to have a surveyor attend and report, which on a constrained site is rarely a same week exercise. And whether the contract deals with what happens if an encroachment is found that the seller cannot cure before settlement, because “the seller must remove it” is not always achievable when the encroaching structure belongs to a neighbour.
What to ask your lawyer and your surveyor
These are the questions that decide the outcome on your particular site, and that this guide deliberately does not answer.
For your property lawyer
- Which encumbrances on this title bind a successor in title, and which are personal to the current owner?
- Have you obtained and read the full instrument behind every dealing number, including the section 88B instrument or its equivalent in this state, rather than the title notation alone?
- Does any easement on this title restrict building over or under it, and who holds the benefit and therefore the power to consent to a variation or relocation?
- Which state’s encroachment regime applies here, and what is the realistic range of outcomes if we apply, or if the neighbour applies against us?
- If we are the encroaching owner, does it change our position to apply first rather than respond?
- Is there any registered agreement on this title, such as a section 173 agreement in Victoria or a public positive covenant in New South Wales, and what continuing obligations and costs does it impose on us and on future purchasers?
- What does the contract say we are taken to have accepted, and does anything in the disclosure schedule constrain the scheme we have modelled?
- Is the due diligence period long enough to obtain the instruments and a survey, and what is our exit if it is not?
- What is the realistic cost, timeframe and prospect of an application to impose an easement over the neighbouring land under section 88K, section 180, or the equivalent here?
- Are there indications of adverse possession affecting any part of this site, such as long standing fences out of position or occupation by a neighbour?
- In Queensland, does the seller disclosure regime apply to this transaction, and has the seller complied?
For your surveyor
- Can you carry out an identification survey and mark the boundaries, and what does the report cover and exclude?
- Do any structures on the site cross a boundary, and do any neighbouring structures cross onto us, including eaves, gutters, footings, retaining walls and awnings?
- Where do the registered easements physically sit relative to our proposed building footprint and basement?
- Is the fence line consistent with the title boundary, and if not, by how much and for how long has it likely been in that position?
- What is the buildable envelope once every easement, setback and encroachment is plotted, and how does that compare with the scheme we have costed?
- Does the proposed construction methodology require any part of a crane, scaffold or hoarding to cross a boundary?
For your project team
- If a lot is lost to a title constraint, at what point does the project stop working, and who makes that call?
- What is the cost and programme difference between the methodology that oversails and the one that does not?
The short version
An encumbrance is read, an encroachment is surveyed, and both are cheaper to find before a contract than after one. Most Australian jurisdictions give a court a discretion to adjust an encroachment rather than order demolition, but the discretion cuts both ways and the identity of the applicant is part of it. Victoria and Tasmania do not have that statutory pathway at all. New Zealand’s wrongly placed structure regime covers similar ground with a wider list of who may apply.
The constraint that ends projects is rarely the dramatic one. It is usually an easement two metres wider than assumed, in a position nobody plotted, disclosed in a schedule nobody read.