A property investor who found himself in a weedy situation has sued his landscaper in the hopes of recouping some green – only to be awarded a measly $15.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal last week ordered New Era Landscapes owner Jonathon O’Brien to pay the meagre amount to cover the cost of weed killer, after some turf he planted sprouted the unwanted saplings.

“I was ecstatic,” Mr O’Brien said on Tuesday. “It could have broke me if I had to pay the $1200 he wanted.”

It all began in January last year when Mr O’Brien was hired by developer Mark Callaghan to plant a lush type of lawn called Matilda buffalo turf in the front garden of his Malvern East investment property.

Mr O’Brien finished the job with some turf to spare, so planted it in a section of the nature strip outside the house so as not to waste it. He did not charge Mr Callaghan for planting the spare bit of grass.

Deciding that the entire nature strip needed to be replanted to help sell the property, Mr Callaghan re-hired Mr O’Brien to plant more Matilda buffalo turf along the rest of the kerb in front of the house.

Mr O’Brien laid the new turf and charged $860 for the work.

When weeds popped up among the blades about two weeks later, Mr Callaghan — presumably a bit turfed off — demanded a refund from Mr O’Brien. He said Mr O’Brien did not dig out enough of the old soil before planting the turf, leaving him among the weeds.

Mr O’Brien told him he was not given ample time to complete to replanting properly, which would have included poisoning the existing lawn and any weeds under the new soil.

He told Mr Callaghan to pull the weeds out and to spray the turf with Weed and Feed – $15 from a hardware store – and that would fix the problem.

After some back and forth and an unsuccessful mediation, Mr Callaghan sued Mr O’Brien for $1200 to replace the turf – $340 more than he paid for the work.

VCAT deputy president Ian Lulham said what made this quagmire more complicated was that the council, which owns the nature strip, dug up a section of the turf to work on the gutter.

It then re-planted ryegrass on that section, a more coarse turf than the Matilda buffalo. It also damaged another section of the turf by parking equipment on it.

In his finding handed down on Thursday, Mr Lulham said Mr O’Brien should not be responsible for damage caused by the council, and that that Mr Callaghan did not prove it would cost $1200 to replace the turf – it was just his estimation.

He found that Mr O’Brien should have killed the weeds under the soil before planting new turf, regardless of the time he was given to do the job, and he had therefore failed to meet the consumer guarantee under section 60 of Australian Consumer Law.

But, he said, Mr Callaghan had failed to maintain the nature strip by watering and weeding the turf.

“Even if [Mr O’Brien] had performed services perfectly, over the many months that have since passed the nature strip would have required maintenance and weeding,” Mr Lulham said.

Mr O’Brien agreed.

“It’s just a bit of nature – you can’t have weed-free turf,” Mr O’Brien said.