Buyer's agent or selling agent: who works for whom in Queensland

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Kooky

Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.

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A buyer at an open home is greeted warmly, handed a brochure and asked what they are looking for. It is an easy conversation, and it is natural to feel the agent is there to help. In a sense that is true. The agent wants the home sold and the buyer may be the one to buy it. But the agent has a client, and the client is the person who owns the house.

That single fact shapes everything else in a sale, and it is the reason a second kind of agent exists. A buyer's agent holds the same Queensland licence as the agent at the door and works under the same Act, with the appointment running the other way. This guide sets the two roles side by side: who appoints each one, who pays, what duties each owes to their own client and to the other party, what information each may share, what happens when two agents negotiate with each other, and where the law draws the line against serving both sides. It is a description of how the system is arranged. It makes no case for or against using a buyer's agent, and a great many Queensland homes are bought without one.

Property Occupations Act 2014; Office of Fair Trading guidance on licensing and appointments; Queensland Government guidance for buyers.

One sale, two possible appointments

Queensland's Property Occupations Act 2014 licenses real estate agents to act "as an agent for others for reward". Section 26 lists what that covers, and it includes both purchasing and selling real property and negotiating either. The Office of Fair Trading's summary of the licence uses the phrase negotiating on behalf of buyers, sellers or landlords.

Whose agent a licensee is in any given sale is decided by one document. The Office of Fair Trading states that a property agent cannot provide services to a client until appointed in writing, and for residential property the appointment is made on Form 6. A seller who lists a home signs a Form 6 with the selling agent. A buyer who engages an agent signs a Form 6 with the buyer's agent. The Queensland Government's guidance for buyers names the same form for that purpose.

So in a sale where both sides are represented there are two appointments, two clients and two sets of instructions. In the far more common sale where only the seller is represented, there is one. The buyer in that sale is not the agent's client. The law's term for them is a prospective buyer, and the difference between a client and a prospective buyer is the subject of most of what follows.

What the selling agent owes the seller

The selling agent's obligations start with the appointment. The form records the services, the commission, the marketing costs and the price the seller hopes to achieve, and the conduct standards in the Property Occupations Regulation 2014 attach to it.

Section 22 of the regulation requires an agent to act in accordance with the client's instructions, unless it would be unlawful. For a selling agent those instructions include the price and terms on which the seller is prepared to sell. Section 19 requires the agent to verify the ownership of the property and its description before listing it. Section 20 requires reasonable steps to establish the material facts about it.

The practical summary is that the selling agent's job is to obtain the best price and terms the market will give, for the seller. Every element of a campaign, from the photographs to the timing of the open homes to the way competing offers are handled, is directed at that. When an agent tells a buyer that there is other interest, or that the seller will not go lower, the agent is doing what the seller engaged them to do.

At an auction the alignment is plainer still. The Office of Fair Trading's guidance says the auctioneer must not disclose the reserve price to anyone other than a person acting for the seller, and the Queensland Government's guidance for buyers notes that it is illegal for a seller or their agent to give a price guide for an auction property.

What the selling agent owes the buyer all the same

None of that makes the buyer fair game. The selling agent is not the buyer's adviser, but the law places real duties on the agent in the buyer's favour.

The first is accuracy. Section 20 of the regulation requires an agent to take reasonable steps to find out the facts material to a sale so as to avoid error, omission, exaggeration or misrepresentation. That standard is about what the agent says of the property, and the person who relies on it is the buyer. The Office of Fair Trading's guidance on advertising adds that an advertised price must not mislead, and consumer law prohibits misleading conduct generally.

The second is disclosure of the agent's own interests. The Office of Fair Trading's guidance on disclosing interests requires an agent to tell a prospective buyer, in writing, when the agent refers the buyer to a third party, what the relationship is and what fees, commissions or other benefits are involved. The examples it gives include mortgage brokers, inspectors and marketing agencies. A buyer who is recommended a broker by the selling agent is entitled to know whether the agent is paid for the introduction.

The third concerns money. A deposit paid to the agent is held in a trust account, and the Office of Fair Trading lists misuse of trust money among the most serious breaches, with a maximum penalty of $172,700 or five years' imprisonment.

What the selling agent does not owe the buyer is advice. The agent is not required to say whether the price is fair, whether a better house is for sale around the corner, or how low the seller would really go. Those are the things a client is told, and the buyer is not the client.

What the buyer's agent owes the buyer

A buyer's agent's obligations mirror the selling agent's, with the buyer in the client's seat.

The Queensland Government's guidance describes the work: finding suitable properties, negotiating with the seller on the buyer's behalf, doing background checks on the property and the area and explaining the local market, and bidding at auction. The appointment form must state those services and any limits on them, all commissions, fees and expenses, and when each is due.

The same conduct standards then apply in the other direction. Under section 22 the buyer's agent must follow the buyer's instructions, which means the brief and above all the price limit. Under section 20 the agent must take reasonable steps to establish the material facts, which for a buyer's agent means the facts about the property being recommended. And under section 18 the agent must not accept the appointment at all if it would place the agent's duty or interests in conflict with the client's.

The buyer's agent's commercial aim is the reverse of the selling agent's: the right property at the lowest price and on the most favourable terms the seller will accept. The two professionals are doing the same job from opposite ends of the table.

Why one agent cannot serve both

If the two roles pull in opposite directions on price, one person cannot perform both in the same sale. Section 18 of the Property Occupations Regulation makes that a rule: a property agent must not accept an appointment to act if doing so will place the agent's duty or interests in conflict with the client's interests.

An agent appointed by a seller to get the highest price who then accepted a second appointment, from the buyer, to get the lowest would be in exactly that position. The rule also reaches less obvious arrangements. A person who presents as a buyer's adviser while being paid a commission by the developer or seller of the property being recommended has an interest in the sale that conflicts with the buyer's interest in an honest assessment.

This is where the term "buyer's agent" needs care. It describes a relationship, not a job title. The test is the appointment and the payment. If the buyer signed the Form 6 and the buyer alone pays the fee, the person is the buyer's agent. If someone else is paying, they are acting in a sale, and Queensland's disclosure rules require the buyer to be told so in writing.

The Real Estate Buyers Agents Association of Australia takes the separation further for its own members, who must act only for buyers and may not list property for sale at all. That is an association rule, stricter than the law. Queensland law allows a licensed agent to sell for one client this month and buy for another next month, so long as the two roles never meet in one transaction.

What each side may say

Much of the practical difference between the roles comes down to information.

The selling agent knows the seller's position: the lowest price that would be accepted, how urgent the sale is, whether another purchase depends on it. That is the client's information and the agent's instructions govern what is done with it. A selling agent who told buyers the seller's bottom line without authority would be acting against the instructions section 22 requires them to follow.

The buyer's agent holds the equivalent knowledge about the buyer: the real limit, how much the buyer wants this particular home, and whether finance is already approved. That information is equally the client's.

A buyer without an agent is in a different position. Anything said to the selling agent has been said to the seller's representative. An agent who learns at an open home that a buyer has sold their own house, needs to move within a month and has fallen for the garden has learned something useful to the seller, and it would be consistent with the agent's duty to use it. There is nothing improper in that. It is the ordinary consequence of who the agent works for.

When two agents negotiate

Where both sides are represented, the negotiation runs between the two agents, each reporting to their own client.

The buyer's agent puts an offer to the selling agent, within the authority the buyer has given. The selling agent takes it to the seller, since the decision is the seller's, and returns with an answer. The buyers and sellers themselves may never speak. Neither agent can bind their client beyond their instructions, and the contract, when one is agreed, is signed by or for the parties themselves.

Three features of this arrangement are worth noting. Each agent is paid only by their own client. A buyer's agent's fee is not a share of the selling agent's commission; the seller pays the full commission agreed on their own form, and the buyer pays the fee agreed on theirs. Second, the buyer's agent's presence does not change the selling agent's duties to the seller or to the buyer. Third, an arrangement in which two agencies share the seller's commission, known as a conjunction, is a different thing altogether: both agencies in a conjunction are working on the seller's side.

When the agent wants the property personally

One situation gets its own rules: an agent who wants to buy a client's property for themselves. The Office of Fair Trading's guidance on disclosing interests calls this a beneficial interest, and it arises where the buyer is the licensee, an associate, or someone acting on the licensee's behalf.

The conditions are strict. The agent must complete the prescribed notice, Form 7, before the contract is entered into and must obtain the client's written consent. The agent must act fairly and honestly in relation to the sale, and the client must not be worse off than in a sale at fair market value. The Office of Fair Trading lists failure to disclose a beneficial interest to a seller with a maximum penalty of $34,540 or three years' imprisonment.

The rule is aimed at selling agents, but it shows the principle that runs through the whole scheme. An agent's own interest must never be hidden from the person the agent is acting for.

Identity checks on both sides

Since 1 July 2026 there is one more point at which the two roles differ. Real estate businesses are now covered by federal anti-money-laundering law and must identify their customers.

Who counts as a customer follows the appointment. In a toolkit issued to members in June 2026, the Real Estate Institute of Queensland advised that a selling agent's customers are the seller, from the appointment, and the buyer, from the signing of the contract, and that a buyer who engages a buyer's agent is that agent's customer from the appointment itself. A represented buyer may therefore be asked for identification twice in one purchase: by their own agent at the start, and by the selling agency once a contract is signed.

A buyer with no agent of their own

A great many buyers in Queensland are in this position, and the system is built with them in mind.

The protections that matter most to an unrepresented buyer do not depend on any agent. Under Queensland's seller disclosure scheme, the seller must give a disclosure statement before the contract is signed. A residential contract carries a cooling-off period of five business days, with a termination penalty of 0.25 per cent of the price if the buyer withdraws during it, according to the Queensland Government's guidance; there is no cooling-off period for a purchase at auction. The contract can be made conditional on finance and on building and pest inspections. And the buyer's solicitor or conveyancer acts for the buyer alone.

What an unrepresented buyer does not have is someone on their side of the price negotiation. Some buyers are comfortable with that and some are not, and the choice is personal. What the rules ensure is that the buyer can know, at every point, whom each professional in the sale is working for.

Every agent in a Queensland sale has a client. The first useful question for a buyer is simply which of them it is.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

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