Property spruikers in Queensland: seminars, commissions and the rules

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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 invitation usually costs nothing. A free evening in a hotel function room, a presenter who built a portfolio from a modest wage, and a promise to show how the same can be done with the equity sitting in an ordinary Queensland home. Most property events are exactly what they say they are. Some are the front end of a sales channel, and the Queensland Government has a word for the people who run those: property spruikers.

This guide sets out what the State's own page on property spruikers and investment seminars says, how commissions work in these arrangements, and which rules cover each person a buyer may meet along the way: the Queensland licence for selling property, the federal licence for financial advice, the consumer law on misleading claims, and the two quite different cooling-off periods that can apply after a seminar. It is general information for readers and for the property professionals who are asked about these events, not advice on a particular offer.

Sources: Queensland Government page on property spruikers and investment seminars, updated 31 January 2025; Office of Fair Trading cooling-off guidance.

What Queensland means by a property spruiker

The Queensland Government's page on property spruikers and investment seminars, last updated on 31 January 2025, gives a definition in two parts. Spruikers are people who give advice and tips on making money by investing in property, or who promote properties for sale in a particular development or area.

The definition is about an activity, and it does not describe an occupation or a licence class. Nobody is registered as a spruiker. A person fitting the description may hold a real estate licence, a financial services licence, both or neither, and that is the reason the question of who is allowed to do what takes up a good part of this guide.

The State's starting advice is plain. Before entering any contract, a buyer should get independent financial and legal advice, and the page stresses this where the purchase would put the buyer's present home at risk by borrowing against its equity. It adds that a spruiker's advice should not be relied on alone, and records that many consumers have gone to court after acting on oversimplified advice or misleading claims.

That last point matters for how the subject is read. The page is a consumer warning about a pattern of selling. It makes no claim that property seminars are unlawful as such, and it names no organiser.

How the invitation works

The State describes the opening move in a few phrases: free "wealth creation" seminars, discounts available only on the spot, and personal loans offered so that an attendee can pay for training.

A free seminar, according to the page, is often used to sell further seminars or materials. Moneysmart, the consumer site run by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, describes the same ladder on its page about investment seminars. Organisers may make the first event free, then promote investment reports, books and more expensive seminars or courses. Presenters may be persuasive, and may say they built their own wealth and can show the audience how to copy it.

Moneysmart's assessment is that such seminars often lead to a sales pitch more than to a real investment opportunity. The Queensland page goes a step further and recommends not attending free seminars of this kind at all.

There is a property-specific version of the ladder. The first rung is education. The second is a strategy session, a mentoring package or a membership. The last is a particular property, frequently a new one in a development the organiser has an arrangement with. Moneysmart's page on land banking notes that lots in undeveloped estates, too, are often promoted at property spruiking events or investment seminars, which it says can be high-pressure.

The warning signs on the State's list

The Queensland page lists the behaviour to be wary of. A spruiker deserves caution, it says, when they:

• rush people into decisions or contracts;
• avoid questions;
• play down risks, with investments in tourist areas and mining towns given as examples;
• play down costs;
• push deals in which they also supply the mortgage broking, the conveyancing, the settlement or the tax advice;
• claim a government approval without evidence of it;
• offer only interstate or off-the-plan properties, which the page notes are harder to check independently.

Moneysmart's list for investment seminars in general overlaps. It names a focus on benefits with the risks left out, limited detail about qualifications or licences, attention on one specific product, deal or course, vagueness about costs, fees or commissions, encouragement to decide on the spot, and little time to read the material or obtain a second opinion.

Moneysmart also lists the promises that should prompt extra care: investments said to be free of risk, the prospect of becoming a millionaire in a few years, returns described as guaranteed or above average, and investments said to be approved by the government. Among the offers it treats as high risk are property deals with rent guarantees or off-the-plan discounts, which it says often include hidden fees and commissions and may involve paying too much for the property.

On success stories, the State makes a point that experienced agents will recognise. Past profits depended on the market at the time. A new development nearby, or the closure of a major employer, can mean the same result is not repeated.

The Queensland page separately names four kinds of scheme to approach with caution: buying investment property through a self-managed super fund, land banking (land sold before it is approved for development), high-risk loans for buyers with poor credit or unstable employment, and rent-to-buy schemes. It calls the last of these high risk because the occupier is not on the title until the property is owned outright.

Commissions and the one-stop shop

The heading the State uses is "undisclosed commissions", and the list under it is long. Spruikers, the page says, may receive commissions or inducements from property developers, mortgage brokers, conveyancers, tax agents, financial planners and advisers, or finance providers. Its conclusion is that their advice may therefore not be independent.

Read with the warning signs, this describes a structure more than a single payment. The presenter recommends a strategy. The strategy needs a property, a loan, a legal representative and perhaps an accountant. Each is supplied by a business the organiser refers to, and each referral can carry a payment back. The buyer sees a convenient package. The economics are those of a distribution channel in which the property price has to carry everyone's margin.

A commission is not improper in itself. Commission is the ordinary way a selling agent is paid, and the Property Occupations Act 2014 lists the regulation of fees and commissions among the ways it achieves its objects. What the State's page objects to is a payment the buyer does not know about, coming from the party on the other side of the buyer's decision.

Moneysmart raises the related-party problem directly in its land banking guidance: promoters may refer investors to advisers they already have a relationship with, or who have a personal stake in the development. ASIC put the same concern in a media release of 27 July 2018 about land schemes, noting that promoters often offer access to lawyers and financial advisers who may not be independent.

That is why both governments return to the same safeguard. The Queensland page says that anyone who does attend a seminar should sign nothing until they have done their own research and received advice from licensed professionals who carry professional indemnity insurance. Moneysmart's wording is a financial adviser with no link to the seminar.

A package in which one organiser supplies the property, the loan and the legal work is convenient, and it is also the arrangement in which nobody is paid to say no.

Who needs a Queensland licence to market property

Selling other people's real estate for reward is a licensed occupation in Queensland. The Property Occupations Act 2014 states its objects in section 12. One is a system for licensing and regulating property agents and registering real estate salespersons. The other, set out as an object in its own right, is to protect consumers against undesirable practices associated with the promotion of residential property.

Section 26 says what a real estate agent licence authorises: acting as an agent for others, for reward, to buy, sell (other than by auction), exchange or let real property or interests in real property, and to negotiate those transactions. Sale by auction sits under the separate auctioneer licence in section 25. Section 24 lists the licence categories as auctioneer, real estate agent and resident letting agent, and section 28 provides for a limited property agent licence. Real estate salespersons are registered and work under a principal licensee.

Applied to a seminar, the question is simple to frame. If the people in the room are introducing buyers to a developer's stock and are paid for the sales that follow, they are doing the work section 26 describes, and the first question for each of them is which licence or registration they hold. Whether a given arrangement falls inside the licence requirement or one of the Act's exemptions depends on its facts, and is a matter for the regulator.

The State's spruiker page puts a number on the risk for the unlicensed. It lists acting as a real estate agent without a licence as an offence with a maximum of $23,560 or two years' imprisonment.

The warning sign about interstate property has a legal side as well as a practical one. The cooling-off guidance described below is published by the Office of Fair Trading for Queensland residential contracts, and a buyer sold a property in another state at a Brisbane seminar should not assume it is the rule that governs that purchase.

Where property talk becomes financial advice

A real estate licence is the Queensland credential for selling a house or a unit. It says nothing about advising on money. Once the conversation moves to funding the purchase through superannuation or another financial product, it has entered the field of the Australian financial services licence, usually shortened to AFS licence.

ASIC has drawn the line for the real estate industry in writing. In a letter dated 3 April 2020, addressed to the real estate institutes and written about agents and tenants during the early release of superannuation, its enforcement division said that financial advice must only be provided by qualified and licensed financial advisers. An agent who specifically recommended that a person look to their superannuation was, the letter said, likely to breach the Corporations Act. It cited section 911A, the provision on unlicensed advice, with a maximum for an individual of five years' imprisonment, a fine of up to $126,000 (600 penalty units), or both.

The letter concerned rent, not seminars, but the boundary it describes is the one a property promoter meets when the pitch turns to setting up a self-managed super fund to buy an investment unit. The Queensland page lists exactly that strategy among the schemes to be cautious of.

A court outcome reported by ASIC shows how the boundary is enforced. In media release 14-299MR of 11 November 2014, ASIC said it had begun proceedings in the Supreme Court of New South Wales against a property investment promoter that did not hold an AFS licence. The regulator alleged the business had promoted self-managed super funds as a way to buy investment property and had advised at least 500 members to establish such funds, which then bought properties owned or promoted by companies in the promoter's group. ASIC's later note on the release records that on 15 October 2015 the court found the promoter had unlawfully carried on a financial services business for more than five years by advising clients to buy investment properties through a self-managed super fund.

The case was in New South Wales and the law is federal, so the same boundary applies to a seminar in Brisbane, Cairns or the Gold Coast. Moneysmart's practical instruction is to check that the presenter or provider holds an AFS licence, using ASIC's Professional Registers Search.

Misleading claims and the penalties the State lists

Claims made from a stage are claims made in trade. The Queensland page lists the conduct that carries penalties: misleading conduct, unconscionable conduct, and harassment or coercion. For these it gives maximum penalties of up to $220,000 for an individual and $1.1 million for a corporation, as the figures stood when the page was last updated on 31 January 2025.

It also lists a Queensland-specific figure: false representations about a property carry a fine of up to $63,612.

The types of statement at issue are familiar from the warning signs. A government approval that does not exist. A rental return presented as certain. A rezoning described as a formality. A discount measured against a price nobody was ever going to pay.

Regulators have acted on seminar promotion for a long time. In a media release dated 20 July 2004, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission reported consent orders in the Federal Court against the promoters of a wealth seminar in Sydney. The promotional material had described strategies that, the promoters accepted, applied in the United States and had no application in Australia. The orders required prominent signs at the seminar entrance and a spoken correction to attendees at the start. That matter was brought under the misleading conduct provisions of the Trade Practices Act 1974, the statute in force at the time, and it is cited here only to show that the remedy can arrive before the event begins.

Cooling-off after a seminar: two different periods

Two separate cooling-off rules can apply to what is bought at or after a seminar, and they are easily confused.

The first concerns the courses, memberships and materials. The Queensland page says that if a seminar did not indicate that goods or services would be sold, the buyer may have a cooling-off period of 10 business days for purchases over $100. The condition is the important part: the right the page describes belongs to the person who came for a free talk and was sold a program, and the page says "may", which leaves the answer to the facts.

The second concerns the property itself. The Office of Fair Trading's guidance on the cooling-off period for residential property contracts, last updated on 12 May 2022, sets out the rule for buyers. The period is 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. It ends at 5pm on the fifth day. To use it, the buyer gives written notice to the seller or the seller's agent before that time. The seller may then keep up to 0.25% of the purchase price from the deposit and must refund the balance within 14 days.

A worked example, with illustrative figures. A couple attend a seminar on a Saturday and receive the fully signed contract for a $600,000 unit the following Tuesday. Tuesday is day one, so with no public holiday in between the period ends at 5pm on the Monday after. If they give written notice in time, the most the seller may keep is 0.25% of $600,000, which is $1,500.

The guidance adds two details that matter where a promoter's office handles the paperwork. Receipt of the signed contract by a representative on the buyer's behalf still starts the period. And if delivery is disputed, it is the seller or the seller's agent who must prove when the contract was delivered.

Contracts that carry no cooling-off at all

The five business days are not universal, and several of the exceptions in the Office of Fair Trading's guidance meet the seminar setting head on.

A buyer may waive the period or shorten it. The guidance says this must be done in writing, and that the writing must either give the period up entirely or fix an end time of 5pm on a named day. A buyer handed a waiver among a bundle of documents on the night has been asked to give away the one pause the law provides.

Auction sales have no cooling-off period. Nor do option contracts, or sale contracts formed from an option contract, which is relevant to the land schemes the State's page warns about.

The guidance also covers the money. The seller's agent usually holds the deposit and must place it in a trust account, and it may be released only when the seller is entitled to it at settlement or the buyer has lawfully cancelled. A request to pay a deposit or a "reservation fee" somewhere other than a trust account is a departure from that ordinary pattern and is worth a question.

Checks before signing, and where to report

Moneysmart suggests three searches on anyone promoting an investment: ASIC's Professional Registers Search under "banned and disqualified", the ACCC's undertakings registers, and action taken by the state or territory consumer protection agency, which in Queensland is the Office of Fair Trading. It attaches a caution. A clean result does not prove that a scheme is legal or safe.

It also gives the questions to put to a promoter: how the investment is expected to deliver its returns, and whether that explanation can be supplied in writing and in detail. Decisions about money, it says, should never be made on the spot.

For complaints, the routes follow the regulators. The Queensland page says that a person who has had unsatisfactory dealings with a property spruiker should notify the Office of Fair Trading through its complaints page, with as much information as possible. Moneysmart says that if a seminar does not seem right, or a person thinks a scam has taken their money, they should report it to ASIC. It adds a step that costs nothing: warn family and friends.

For licensed agents and salespeople, the State's material is also a description of the boundary of their own work. Selling real property and negotiating the sale are what the licence authorises. Recommending that a client turn to their superannuation to pay for the purchase is not on that list, and ASIC has told the industry so in writing.

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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