Fencing PerthWestern Australia

The rules behind a Perth fence

Fencing Perth is a guide to the rules particular to fences in Perth, published by Dotto from the Western Australian laws, government guidance and council local laws listed at the foot of each page. It starts where many Perth back fences do: WA Health counts cement sheeting boundary fences among the most common uses of asbestos cement in the state, and says many of those fences are now damaged or worn after decades in place.

A Perth fence line in elevation: weathered asbestos cement sheets, hatched, meeting new steel sheets. A drawing for this guide, not to scale.

Five sheets of one fence

  • Old asbestos cement fences

    How WA Health tells an asbestos cement fence apart, rates its condition and suggests what to do about it, and what the Health (Asbestos) Regulations 1992 require.

  • Council fencing local laws

    What the Cockburn, Kalamunda, Armadale and Canning fencing local laws each count as a sufficient fence, which older fences still count, and how each enforces upkeep.

  • Barbed wire and electric fences

    Where those four laws allow barbed wire, razor wire and electric fences, and on what conditions.

  • Street walls and front fences

    Clause 5.2.4 of the R-Codes Volume 1 of April 2026, its definitions, and the sightlines at a driveway.

  • When a fence needs a building permit

    Schedule 4 of the Building Regulations 2012, and the Building Act’s rules for work next door that would remove your fence.

Three kinds of rule on one fence

Health rules for asbestos. WA’s Health (Asbestos) Regulations 1992 apply in every council district as if they were local laws. Under them an authorised officer can direct an owner to repair or remove asbestos material, including a fence, that may be a public health hazard; WA Health’s guidance says those officers are mainly local government environmental health officers.

Each council’s fencing local law. A council’s fencing local law sets the sufficient fence for its district: the Shire of Kalamunda’s, for one, says its purpose is to prescribe a sufficient fence and the standard for building fences throughout the district. The laws differ from council to council, so every rule on this site is labelled with the council it belongs to.

State planning and building rules. The Residential Design Codes set the deemed-to-comply provisions for front fences in a street setback area, and Schedule 4 of the Building Regulations 2012 says when a fence needs no building permit.

Sharing the cost of a dividing fence with a neighbour is a matter for the Dividing Fences Act 1961, which WA Health’s guidance describes as setting out how neighbours agree on a dividing fence, settle the boundary and share the cost of building and maintaining it. The WA Government’s dividing fences guide takes you through it.

Who looks after what

A damaged asbestos cement fence
HealthyWA points you to the environmental health service at your local government to report damaged asbestos, asbestos cement fences included.
A building permit
Your local government assesses a permit application, and Building and Energy recommends asking it what it needs and which local laws apply.
A dispute over a dividing fence
The WA Government’s guide says that in most cases it is a civil matter, dealt with by the Magistrates Court.

Each sheet of this guide is written from the law or official page it cites, with every rule labelled by the council or body it comes from, and checked against those sources on the date at the foot of the page.