On the rostrum: the auctioneer's legal duties on a Queensland auction day

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Kooky

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

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The crowd at a Queensland auction sees a performance that lasts a quarter of an hour. The person giving it sees a list. Before the first bid is invited, the auctioneer has already had to show who they are, set out the terms of the sale, sort the people present into those who may bid and those who may not, and keep one figure entirely to themselves. After the last bid there is a contract to sign and a book to write up. Most of those tasks are not habits of the trade. They are legal duties, and the law places them on the auctioneer by name.

They come from three places. The Property Occupations Act 2014 creates the licence and the authority that goes with it. The Property Occupations Regulation 2014 carries the detailed rules on registers, records and conduct. And the Office of Fair Trading, which enforces both, sets out its reading of them on a page titled "Auctioning a property", written to the auctioneer in the second person: you must, you must not. This guide follows the day in the order an auctioneer lives it, says which duties carry a stated maximum penalty and which are enforced in other ways, and ends with the question the statute does not answer: how much is left to the auctioneer's own judgment. It is a description of general rules, not advice on any particular sale.

The auctioneer answers personally

Queensland auctions are usually arranged by an agency, but the rules of the day do not speak to the agency. The Regulation's auction provisions each begin with the auctioneer: the auctioneer must display a name, the auctioneer must keep a register, the auctioneer must disclose a seller's bid. The Office of Fair Trading's page follows the same grammar.

That fits the way the licence works. Section 25 of the Act authorises the holder of an auctioneer licence to sell real property by auction as an agent for others, for reward. A commentary on the law of auctions by Carter Newell Lawyers, published by the REIQ on 2 March 2026, describes the licence as separate and distinct from a real estate agent's. The person who holds it is the one the law looks to for what happens while bids are being taken.

Two conditions must be met before that person can lawfully begin. The first is the licence itself. The second is an appointment. The Office of Fair Trading puts it in one sentence: an auctioneer cannot conduct an auction on a property without a valid appointment to act. The Carter Newell commentary adds that the appointment must be in writing before any service is performed, and that it must state the date set for the auction. How an appointment is made and paid for is a subject of its own. What matters on the day is that it exists, because every instruction the auctioneer follows comes out of it.

Homework the Regulation expects

Two of the Regulation's conduct rules are met before anybody arrives, and they are the least visible duties of all.

The first concerns the property itself. Before auctioning it, the Regulation says, an auctioneer appointed to sell must take reasonable steps to find out or verify who owns the property and how it is described. Selling the right lot for the right owner sounds too obvious to legislate. It is in the Regulation because an auction produces a binding contract in an instant, with no time afterwards to discover that the description was wrong.

The second concerns what is said about the property. The auctioneer must take reasonable steps to find out or verify the facts material to the sale that a prudent auctioneer would have checked, so as to avoid error, omission, exaggeration or misrepresentation. The duty does not stop when the auction starts: the Regulation says the steps are to be taken before the auction and afterwards as the occasion arises. The Office of Fair Trading's page makes the companion point briefly: an auctioneer must not misrepresent the property in any disclosure.

For the person on the rostrum, the two rules shape the opening remarks. A preamble that describes the home, its position and its features is a set of statements about facts material to the sale. The standard the Regulation sets for them is the prudent auctioneer, not the enthusiastic one.

There is also a record to open. The Regulation requires an auctioneer to keep an auction contract book at their registered office, and to make an entry before the auction as well as after it. The entry made beforehand records the date the property was placed for sale, its lot-on-plan description, a description of the improvements, the name and address of the owner, the reserve price, any special conditions, and the proposed date, time and place of the auction. The Regulation allows one shortcut: where those particulars are already in the appointment document kept at the office, they need not be written out again in the book.

A name where everyone can read it

The first duty the public can see is a small one. Under section 9 of the Regulation, the auctioneer must display their name in a conspicuous position, clearly visible, for the whole of the auction. The Office of Fair Trading asks for clear, legible text.

The rule has a practical exception written for the front lawn. Where a display would not work, because the auction is held outdoors and exposed to the weather or because the auctioneer has to move from place to place, the Regulation lets the auctioneer announce their name at the start instead.

The purpose is accountability. A bidder or a seller who later wants to raise something about the conduct of an auction needs to know whose auction it was, and the public register of licences shows each licence holder by name.

Setting out the conditions

Before bidding opens, the people present are entitled to know the terms they are bidding on. The Carter Newell commentary lists what the auctioneer must display and announce as the conditions of the auction: the auction process, the deposit payable under the contract, all other pertinent terms of the contract of sale, and any other information material to potential bidders.

The Office of Fair Trading's page is less formal about the content. It says the conditions might include the required deposit, inspection details and any other relevant details about the sale or the property. It also offers a method that suits a residential auction well: the auctioneer may use the unsigned contract of sale to disclose the conditions. Laying the contract out for inspection, and drawing attention to its main terms aloud, puts the actual document in front of the people who may be bound by it a few minutes later.

One announcement belongs with the conditions because the Regulation ties it to the register. The auctioneer must tell those present that bids will be accepted only from registered bidders. A bidder who hears that and has not registered knows what to do before the bidding starts.

The bidders register

Registration is the duty with the most moving parts, and section 23 of the Regulation sets them out.

The auctioneer keeps a register of bidders for the auction. A person goes onto it by giving their name and address together with evidence of their identity, and the Office of Fair Trading says identification must be verified before a bidder is registered. Each registered bidder is then given a unique identifier that is easy to use and to recognise. The regulator's examples are numbered cards or batons. Before taking any bid, the auctioneer must be satisfied that the person making it is registered, and the Carter Newell commentary states the rule in the negative: a bid must not be accepted from a person who is not registered and has not been issued a bidder number for that auction.

Three further points matter to the person holding the clipboard.

• A registration can carry over. The Regulation allows a registration previously made by the auctioneer to be applied to one or more later auctions that auctioneer conducts, which is how in-room events with a run of properties are managed.
• People who bid for someone else are recorded as such. According to the Carter Newell commentary, a person bidding on another's behalf must give the prospective buyer's details as well as their own, say so if they are acting as a buyer's agent, and produce a written authority such as a letter of authority or a power of attorney. A person who will bid on instructions given by telephone must also give the auctioneer the name and address of the person instructing them.
• The register is kept. The Regulation sets a minimum of five years.

The commentary draws one distinction worth knowing. If a bidder fails to disclose the capacity in which they are bidding, the sale is not automatically invalid. The consequences of accepting a bid in breach of the registration rules fall on the auctioneer.

Keeping bidders' identities private

The register gives the auctioneer personal details about everyone who might bid, and the Regulation restricts what may be done with them. An auctioneer must not disclose the identity of a registered bidder to anyone other than an inspector or a court.

The Office of Fair Trading states the day-to-day effect: the auctioneer must not identify any bidder during the auction. This is the reason bids are called by number or by a nod towards a card. A bidder's name is not announced to the crowd, and the neighbours who came to watch leave without learning who was bidding.

The rule has one exception, and it is narrow. The auctioneer may disclose a bidder's identity to the seller, or to the seller's agent, where that is necessary to negotiate after a property has been passed in or to bring about the sale. The regulator's summary is that identification after the auction is permitted only for the purpose of finalising the sale.

What stays unsaid about price

Several of the auctioneer's duties are duties of silence.

The reserve is the first. The Office of Fair Trading's page says an auctioneer must not disclose the reserve price to anyone other than a person acting for the seller. The auctioneer may say that a reserve exists. The figure is not to be given. Nor, the page adds, may the auctioneer disclose an estimated value of the property during the auction.

The second is the price guide. The regulator's instruction is direct: an auctioneer must not publish any price guide for potential bidders. Its reasoning is that the value of a property sold at auction is determined by the market, and that this can only happen at the auction itself. The single allowance is technical. A price may be supplied to an electronic listing provider so that the listing can be sorted in searches, on the condition that it is not shown to the public and that the listing carries the required disclaimer.

On the rostrum these rules meet the most natural question a bidder can ask. An auctioneer invited to say where the bidding ought to start, or what the seller is hoping for, has a short list of lawful answers. They can say whether there is a reserve. They can ask for an opening bid. They cannot name the reserve and they cannot offer an estimate.

Bids for the seller

Queensland permits the seller to bid, through the auctioneer or in person, and it regulates the practice with two rules that both rest on the auctioneer.

The first is disclosure. If the seller, or someone acting for the seller, makes a bid, the Regulation requires the auctioneer to disclose to the other bidders that the bid was made by or for the seller. The Office of Fair Trading words it as a duty that applies every time: the auctioneer must disclose whenever a bid is a vendor bid. An announcement made once in the preamble that the seller reserves the right to bid does not replace the announcement of each bid as it is made.

The second is a ceiling. The auctioneer may accept a bid from the seller's side only up to the reserve price. The regulator's page ties this to the moment the property goes on the market: once bidding reaches or exceeds the reserve, the auctioneer may no longer accept vendor bids, and the seller must accept the highest bid as the sale price.

From the auctioneer's position, this makes the written reserve a working tool. It is the figure that says whether a bid for the seller may still be taken, and it is the figure after which every bid called must come from a registered bidder with a card. The Queensland Government's page for people buying at auction describes the announcement that the property is on the market as the signal the crowd receives. The auctioneer is the only person present who knows exactly what it corresponds to.

When the hammer falls

The fall of the hammer is a legal event, and the auctioneer's role changes with it. According to the Carter Newell commentary, a binding contract is formed at that point, and under section 160 of the Property Occupations Act 2014 the auctioneer then has authority to sign the contract of sale on behalf of the seller and on behalf of the successful bidder.

That authority is unusual. For a short time one person may sign for both sides of the same sale. The commentary is careful about its limits: the authority extends only as far as is reasonably connected with completing the sale, and it does not continue indefinitely after the auction. It exists so that a sale made in public cannot be undone by one party declining to pick up a pen. It is not a general power to act for either of them.

In the ordinary case it is never used. The Queensland Government's page for buyers says the successful bidder signs the contract immediately, and the auctioneer's task is to see that the document signed is the one whose terms were displayed, with the price at which the hammer fell.

The record is then closed. After the auction, the Regulation requires a second entry in the auction contract book: the date of the auction and a description of the property and, if it sold, the price and the buyer's name and address. If it did not sell, the entry records the highest bid, with the bidder's name and address where known.

Penalties, and what else can follow

The sources read for this guide state a maximum penalty in figures for two groups of duties.

The first is the reserve conversation. The Office of Fair Trading's page, updated on 1 July 2026, gives a maximum penalty of $34,540 against the duties to ask the seller whether a reserve has been set and, if the seller chooses to have none, to advise them in writing that they will be obliged to accept the highest bid. It is the only dollar figure on the page.

The second is record keeping. Section 11 of the Regulation attaches a maximum of 10 penalty units to the entry required before an auction and the same maximum to the entry required after it. The Regulation expresses the amount in penalty units and not in dollars.

For the other duties described here, the passages read state no figure. That does not make them optional. The Carter Newell commentary says a failure to comply with the bidder registration and record-keeping obligations can bring monetary penalties, disciplinary action, suspension or cancellation of the auctioneer's licence, and regulatory enforcement action. For someone whose income depends on a licence, the last three of those may weigh more than a fine.

The pattern across the two penalties is worth noticing. The largest stated figure does not protect a bidder. It protects the seller, at the moment when the seller is deciding whether to give up the safety of a reserve. The smaller figure protects the record, which is what allows anyone to check afterwards how an auction was run.

What is left to the auctioneer's discretion

Legislation tells the auctioneer what must and must not be done. It says much less about the calls that make up the craft: whether to take a bid that rises by a small amount, what to do when two people claim the same bid, whether to turn a bid away. None of the statutory passages read for this guide gives the auctioneer a power to refuse a bid or to rule on a dispute. Where such powers exist, they are found in the conditions of sale for the particular auction.

A set of conditions published by a Queensland Government body shows what such terms can look like. The Public Trustee of Queensland publishes conditions of sale for its real estate auctions. The document is undated, and it is one seller's terms, not a statement of the law. Under those conditions:

• the auctioneer may refuse any bid, and no bid may be retracted;
• no bidder may advance by less than the sum the auctioneer names;
• the auctioneer decides any dispute about any matter concerning the auction, including a bid, in the auctioneer's absolute discretion, which may include reopening the bidding at the highest previously accepted bid;
• the highest acknowledged bidder is the buyer, subject to the reserve;
• if the buyer fails to sign the contract, the auctioneer may sign it for them.

Terms of this kind explain why the announcement of conditions is more than a formality. An auctioneer who declines a bid, or who restarts the bidding after two hands went up together, is using a power that the bidders accepted when they registered under those conditions. If the conditions were never properly put before them, the footing for the decision is weaker.

Conditions also sit underneath the legislation, never above it. The Public Trustee's document says the seller reserves the right to bid in person or through the auctioneer as often as the seller thinks fit. Read alone, that sounds unlimited. An auctioneer applying it is still bound by the Regulation: each such bid must be disclosed as the seller's, and none may be accepted above the reserve. The contract sets out how the auction runs, and the Act and Regulation set the limits it runs within.

An auctioneer's discretion comes from the conditions announced before the bidding. The duties come from the law, and no condition can remove them.

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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