In this article
Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →The auctioneer calls for a final bid, pauses, and announces that the property will be passed in. The crowd drifts back to the footpath. For the people who matter most at that moment, the seller and the last person who bid, the day is far from over. In many cases the real conversation is only starting.
A passed-in auction is an ordinary result. In the week ending 7 June 2026, Cotality's final figures show that more than half of the Brisbane homes taken to auction ended this way. It is not a verdict on the home, the campaign or the agent. It means that, on that day, the bidding in the room and the seller's confidential minimum did not meet.
What follows is governed by a small number of Queensland rules, and by a good deal of practice that is not law at all. This guide separates the two. It covers what "passed in" means, where the highest bidder really stands, the two-business-day window that removes the cooling-off period, what changes for the seller, and how a passed-in home is counted in the weekly figures. It describes general rules; how they apply to one sale depends on that sale's own conditions and paperwork.
Queensland Government, "Buying property at auction" and "Cooling-off period" pages. The first figure applies to registered bidders only.
What passed in means in Queensland
A Queensland seller may set a reserve price, the lowest figure at which the property will be sold under the hammer. According to the Office of Fair Trading's page on auctioning a property, the reserve is set in writing and kept confidential. The Queensland Government's guide to buying at auction adds that the auctioneer may tell the crowd whether a reserve exists, but must not disclose the amount.
Related readSelling at auction in Queensland: the seller's choices and the law's rulesThe same guide gives the definition that matters here. If bidding does not reach the reserve, the property is passed in, and negotiation may follow. That short sentence carries two points. A pass-in is not a sale and creates no agreement between anyone. And negotiation is something that may happen afterwards, not something the page says must happen.
The Office of Fair Trading also describes the case of a seller who chooses to set no reserve at all. In that situation, it says, the agent must tell the seller in writing that the highest bid will have to be accepted. A property offered that way cannot be passed in for falling short of a reserve, because there is none. Every other auction carries the possibility.
One detail is easy to miss from the back of the crowd. The Queensland Government's guide says vendor bids, which are bids made on the seller's behalf, are allowed only up to the reserve and must be announced as such. The last figure called before a pass-in may therefore be an announced vendor bid and not a buyer's bid. Who made the final genuine bid, and at what level, is a fact about that particular auction.
How often it happens: the June figures
Pass-ins are a routine part of the Queensland auction calendar, and in early winter 2026 they were the most common single outcome in the capital.
Cotality's final results for the week ending 7 June 2026, released on 11 June 2026, counted 135 auctions in Brisbane. The final clearance rate was 34.1 per cent and the pass-in rate was 56.3 per cent, the highest of the capital cities that week. Across the combined capitals, the same release counted 1,175 auctions, of which 455 were passed in, or 38.7 per cent, and 164 were withdrawn, or 14.0 per cent.
Related readAfter the hammer falls in Queensland: contract, deposit and settlementThose figures describe one week and one data provider's count. They say nothing about any other week, and they are not a guide to what a particular home will do. What they do show is scale: on that weekend, a Brisbane seller whose property was passed in was in the majority, and so was a bidder who went home without a signed agreement.
The highest bidder's place: law or custom
Ask anyone who follows auctions and they will say the highest bidder gets the first right to negotiate. In Queensland, that phrase needs care.
The Queensland Government's guide to buying at auction says only that negotiation may follow a pass-in. Neither that page nor the Office of Fair Trading's page on auctioning a property describes a right for the highest bidder to negotiate first, or a right to buy at the reserve. On the government material consulted for this guide, the "first right" is not presented as a rule of Queensland law.
Where a first position exists, it comes from the conditions of sale of the auction concerned, the written terms the auctioneer makes available before bidding starts. Two public bodies publish theirs, and they show how such a clause works and how much it can vary.
The Public Trustee of Queensland's auction conditions of sale state that if a property is passed in, the highest bidder has the exclusive right to negotiate until the end of the auction, or until any other time the auctioneer specifies. That is a real entitlement, but a short one: by default it lasts as long as the auction itself.
Related readAuction or private treaty in Queensland: how the two methods differBrisbane City Council's information sheet on its own terms and conditions of sale takes a similar line in different words. If the reserve is not reached, the council may negotiate only with the highest bidder, and any sale agreed that way must be at a price above the highest bid made at the auction.
Both documents apply to those bodies' own sales and to nothing else. A private seller's auction runs under its own conditions, which may give the highest bidder a first turn, a shorter turn, or none in writing. The fair summary is this: the first conversation going to the highest bidder is a strong and widely followed convention, and in a given auction it is a right only to the extent the conditions of sale say so.
The convention also has limits that follow from what it is. A turn to negotiate is not an agreement. Nothing in the sources above obliges the seller to accept the highest bidder's improved offer, or the bidder to make one. Either side can end the conversation, and the seller can then speak with other interested parties.
The two-business-day window
The firmest rule in this whole area is not about who negotiates first. It is about what kind of agreement is signed in the days straight after the auction.
A purchase under the hammer has no cooling-off period, according to the Queensland Government's guide to buying at auction. The same guide extends that position a little further. If a registered bidder buys the property by private contract within two business days after the unsuccessful auction, the cooling-off period does not apply either. The Office of Fair Trading's page on the cooling-off period for residential property contracts words the deadline more precisely: a follow-up sale after an unsuccessful auction, before 5pm on the second business day, in which the buyer was a registered bidder.
Related readAUSTRAC spells out how identity checks work when a home sells at auctionThe reasoning is easy to follow. A registered bidder has, in principle, read the terms, inspected the home and arranged money before auction day. A deal struck with that person on the Saturday afternoon or the Monday morning is treated much like the auction it grew out of.
The table sets out the three situations the government pages describe.
| Who signs, and when | Cooling-off period | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Registered bidder, before 5pm on the second business day | None | The agreement is firm on signing, as at auction. |
| Registered bidder, after that deadline | 5 business days | The usual private treaty protection returns. |
| Buyer who was not a registered bidder, at any time | 5 business days | The auction exception does not reach this buyer. |
Queensland Government "Buying property at auction" (updated 14 October 2024) and Office of Fair Trading cooling-off page (updated 12 May 2022). Other exemptions listed by the Office of Fair Trading are not shown.
Two points deserve attention. First, the rule turns on being a registered bidder, not on being the highest bidder. The Office of Fair Trading requires the agent to keep a register of bidders for every auction, and anyone on it who signs inside the window is in the same position, including a person who registered and never raised a hand. Second, the exception removes only the statutory cooling-off period. Whatever conditions the two sides write into their agreement, such as a finance or inspection clause, are a matter of negotiation between them and of the document they sign.
A weekend on the clock
Take an auction held on a Saturday. Read with the Office of Fair Trading's 5pm wording, and with no public holiday on the Monday or Tuesday, the deadline falls at 5pm on the Tuesday. A public holiday moves it, and the exact deadline for a given auction is worth confirming with the solicitor or conveyancer acting on the sale.
- SaturdayThe property is passed in. Talks may start on the spot, under the auction's conditions of sale.
- Monday and TuesdayA registered bidder who signs before 5pm on Tuesday has no cooling-off period.
- From Tuesday eveningAn agreement signed from here carries the usual five business days.
For both sides the window cuts two ways. A seller who agrees terms with a registered bidder inside it has the certainty an auction was meant to deliver. A bidder who signs inside it accepts that certainty too. Neither position is better in itself; they are different bargains, and the difference is set by the calendar.
Related readMore Brisbane auctions, same result: 164 homes and 35.4 per centWhat cooling-off gives a later buyer
Once the window has closed, or where the buyer was never a registered bidder, the ordinary rules for a private treaty sale apply. The Queensland Government's cooling-off page sets them out.
The standard contract for a home carries a cooling-off period of five business days. It starts on the day the buyer receives a copy of the contract signed by both parties, or on the next business day if that falls on a weekend or public holiday, and it ends at 5pm on the fifth day. A buyer who withdraws in that time does so by signed written notice to the seller or the seller's agent.
Withdrawal has a price. The seller may keep a penalty of up to 0.25 per cent of the purchase price and must refund the rest of the deposit within 14 days, according to the same page. As a worked example on an illustrative figure, 0.25 per cent of a price of $900,000 is $2,250.
The buyer may also give the period up. The Queensland Government's page says a buyer can waive or shorten the cooling-off period by giving written notice to the seller or the seller's agent. Brisbane City Council's information sheet shows this in use: it warns that the highest bidder negotiating after a pass-in may be asked to waive or shorten any cooling-off period. Whether that is asked, and whether it is agreed, depends on the sale.
The no-cooling-off rule follows the register, not the final bid
The Queensland Government's guide ties the two-business-day exception to being a registered bidder at the unsuccessful auction. A registered bidder who never bid is covered by it. A buyer who was not registered is not, whenever the agreement is signed.
What changes for the seller
For the seller, a pass-in changes the method of sale more than the substance. The property is still for sale, the agent still acts, and the reserve was only ever the floor for the auction.
Related readBrisbane auction clearance sits 30 points under last year's levelThe reserve stays confidential. The Office of Fair Trading's requirement that the reserve be kept confidential is not lifted by the fall of the hammer or the lack of one. What the seller chooses to say about price in a private negotiation afterwards is the seller's decision.
Price talk. The Queensland Government's guide to buying at auction states that it is illegal to give a price guide for an auction property. The Office of Fair Trading's page for the industry frames the rule the same way, as one about property being auctioned: the agent must not disclose a price guide, or a price the agent thinks would win, to anyone other than a person acting for the seller. That page also notes that a listing website may be given a price for search purposes only, with a statement that the property is being sold by auction or without a price. Both pages speak about auction marketing. Neither sets out, in terms, what an agent may say about price once the auction is over and the home is offered for private sale, so this guide does not state a rule on that point. How the property is presented after a pass-in is settled between the seller and the agent, within the agent's obligations.
Disclosure is already done. Under the seller disclosure scheme in force since 1 August 2025, the Queensland Government's scheme page says the disclosure statement and prescribed certificates must be given before the buyer signs and, for an auction, before the fall of the hammer. A registered bidder negotiating on the Saturday has therefore had the chance to see them. A buyer who arrives later needs them before signing, as in any private sale. The same page says a buyer may be able to terminate at any time up to settlement if the documents were not given, so the timing matters to the seller as much as to the buyer.
Related readBrisbane clearance rate jumps to 41.6 per cent but trails last yearWho the seller can talk to. Subject to whatever the conditions of sale say about the highest bidder's turn, nothing in the government material limits the seller to one buyer. The Office of Fair Trading notes that bidders' identities are not revealed during the auction and may be disclosed afterwards only as needed to complete a sale, which is why the agent, not the crowd, is the channel for those conversations.
Buyers who were not the highest bidder
A pass-in reopens the field. The underbidder, a registered bidder who stayed quiet, and a buyer who only heard about the home on Sunday can all end up at the table once any exclusive period in the conditions of sale has ended.
Their positions differ in one respect only, the one set out in the table above. Registered bidders who sign before the deadline do so without a cooling-off period. Everyone else, and registered bidders after the deadline, sign with the usual five business days described on the Queensland Government's cooling-off page.
This is why two offers at the same price may not look the same to a seller in the first two business days. One is firm on signing; the other can be withdrawn for five business days at a cost to the buyer of up to 0.25 per cent of the price. Which the seller prefers depends on the offers, the conditions attached to them and the seller's own circumstances.
How a passed-in home is counted
A pass-in on Saturday is not the last word in the statistics either. Cotality's description of its auction results says a property is counted as sold whether it sells before the auction, at it or after it. A home passed in on Saturday and sold by negotiation on Monday can therefore still be counted as sold in the final clearance rate published the following Thursday.
That has a practical consequence for reading the weekly numbers. The pass-in rate in a final release, such as Brisbane's 56.3 per cent for the week ending 7 June 2026, describes homes that had not been reported sold by the time the count closed, on Cotality's method. It is a snapshot taken a few days after the auctions, not a record of where each of those homes ended up.
A pass-in closes the auction and nothing else. The sale is still open, and for two business days the clock runs differently for those who registered.
Points that depend on the sale
Several of the questions people ask after a pass-in have no single Queensland answer, because the answer sits in one auction's documents.
- Whether the highest bidder has a first turn, and for how long. This comes from the conditions of sale. The Public Trustee of Queensland's conditions, for example, run it to the end of the auction unless the auctioneer names another time.
- Whether the last bid was a buyer's. Vendor bids are permitted up to the reserve and must be announced, according to the Queensland Government's guide.
- The exact deadline. The Office of Fair Trading gives 5pm on the second business day; public holidays shift the count.
- Whether a later buyer keeps the cooling-off period. The Queensland Government's page allows it to be waived or shortened by written notice from the buyer.
- What is said about price after the auction. The published rule concerns auction marketing; what follows is for the seller and agent to settle.
The Queensland Government's guide to buying at auction recommends that bidders read the contract and take legal advice before auction day. After a pass-in, the same documents, read again by a solicitor or conveyancer, are where the answers for one particular sale are found.
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.
