Legal giant’s epic battle over tree in leafy Brisbane suburb

One of the nation’s top silks has won an ugly legal stoush over a large tree with his millionaire apartment block neighbours.

A tree growing next door to Elron Court on Moray St, New Farm, caused a legal battle between neighbours.

One of the nation’s top silks has won an ugly legal stoush over a large tree with his millionaire apartment block neighbours in a leafy pocket of inner Brisbane.

The body corporate for Elron Court, a building of eight apartments on Moray Street, New Farm, applied to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal three-and-a half years ago to get the green light to cut down a tree growing mostly next door which it claimed had spread through the fence and sent roots under Elron Court’s driveway.

The body corporate argued before QCAT that Shane Doyle KC and his wife Margaret should be ordered to pay to fell the large mature Albizia tree in their garden “urgently” because they “have no respect for the rights of the (body corporate) to the enjoyment of their own property as it was designed and constructed”.

The body corporate argued the tree’s roots have made the unit block’s eastern driveway “unusable”, and submitted the roots would prevent them from reinstating the driveway to the original 1930s concrete strip style.

They also argued the roots were damaging sewer pipes and the tree was filling roof gutters with leaves.

Former High Court judge Ian Callinan owned a three-bedroom apartment in Elron Court for 27 years until July 13, a week after the QCAT ruling, when property records show he sold it for $1.25m. He bought the unit for $168,000 in 1996.

Elron Court on Moray St, New Farm, where former High Court judge Ian Callinan lived for 27 years before selling last month.

In a decision handed down on July 7, QCAT member Peter Roney KC threw out the long-running case, ruling the Doyle’s tree could stay as the neighbouring driveway was “not unusable”.

“(Mr and Mrs Doyle) have acted responsibly and have undertaken to continue to do so. There is no substance to the submission that they lack respect of the kind suggested,” Mr Roney stated.

“I am not satisfied that the damage to pipes or the driveway was serious damage,” Mr Roney states in his reasons.

The tree is 15 to 20m tall and its trunk has a 70cm diameter and it gives the Doyles privacy and shade and is a home for birds, the tribunal heard.

Over the more than three years the case was before the tribunal nearly a dozen expert reports were filed about the tree and whether it was causing substantial, ongoing and unreasonable interference to owners in Elron Court, or was likely to injure someone.

One report said a “porous dynamic driveway” could be built at Elron Court for $31,396, instead of the concrete strip driveway, and an arborist warned that if roots were cut the tree would be unstable or susceptible to decay-causing fungi.

Shane Doyle KC. Picture: AAP Image/Jono Searle

Former High Court judge Ian Callinan.

Mr Doyle is one of Australia’s leading silks who specialises in commercial law and practices from chambers in London, Brisbane and Sydney.

He is best known for acting for special purpose liquidator Steve Parbery to recoup millions in taxpayer cash from Clive Palmer’s collapsed Queensland Nickel.

The Doyle’s paid $2.42m for the 1880-built heritage-listed house called Glenugie in 2002, and it sits on 2,131 sqm stretching from Moray St to Herbert St at the rear.

Mr Doyle told QCAT in his statement that he and his wife can arrange, or contribute to the cost of future work to fix damage to Elron Court’s driveway, gutters, plumbing or sewage.

He said that since buying the house 21 years ago he has always maintained the tree with professional pruning and arborist inspections.

Mr Doyle told the tribunal that Elron Court’s sewage pipes were damaged more than a decade ago.