# Selling before auction day: how prior offers work in Queensland
An offer that lands before a Queensland auction changes the rules of the sale: the cooling-off period can return, no price guide is allowed, and the seller decides what happens next.
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Three weeks into a four-week auction campaign, a buyer rings the agent with a figure and a deadline. The seller now has a decision that the auction was supposed to make for them, and the buyer has stepped out of one set of rules and into another without always noticing. Most of what people know about Queensland auctions concerns the day itself: registration, the reserve, the fall of the hammer. An offer made before that day sits in a different place in the law.
The difference is practical. A contract formed when the hammer falls carries no cooling-off period. A contract signed on the kitchen bench ten days earlier is, on the Office of Fair Trading's published list of exemptions, an ordinary residential contract, and the buyer's five business days come back unless the buyer gives them up in writing. The ban on price guides still applies, the agent still acts on the seller's instructions, and the other buyers who were planning to bid have no automatic right to be asked.
This guide follows a prior offer from the first phone call to the signed contract: what the phrase means, what the agent may and may not say about price, what the seller can answer, how cooling-off works on each route, what bringing the auction forward changes, and where the deposit goes.
5 daysbusiness days of cooling-off on a contract signed before auction
0.25%most a seller may keep if the buyer cools off
5pmsecond business day: post-auction cut-off for registered bidders
Queensland Government and Office of Fair Trading pages on the cooling-off period for residential property contracts.
## What an offer prior to auction is
A property marketed for auction has no asking price. The seller has appointed an agent, set a date, and agreed that the price will be found by competing bids. An offer prior to auction is a buyer's attempt to buy before that competition takes place: a figure, a set of terms and usually a time limit, put to the seller through the agent.
Nothing in Queensland law gives a buyer the right to have such an offer accepted, or obliges a seller to invite one. Whether offers will be looked at before the day is a choice the seller makes with the agent, often at the start of the campaign and sometimes again when a serious figure turns up. A seller who would rather let the auction run can say so, and a buyer who is told that has lost nothing: the auction is still there to bid at.
## No price guide, before or after the offer
The first thing a buyer wants before naming a figure is a hint. In Queensland the agent cannot give one. The Office of Fair Trading's page for the property industry on auctioning a property, last updated on 1 July 2024, states the position plainly: the value of a property at auction is determined by the market, and that can only happen at the auction itself. An agent must not disclose a price guide, or a price the agent thinks will produce a successful bid, to anyone other than a person acting for the seller. The reserve price is covered by the same silence. The agent may say that a reserve exists, and nothing more.
A buyer preparing a prior offer is therefore working without the two numbers that would help most. Asking "what would it take?" does not change the rule, and an agent who answers with a range is giving the price guide the rule forbids. What the agent can do is take a figure to the seller and come back with the seller's answer.
Two narrow openings exist. The first is the comparative market analysis the agent prepared for the seller. According to the same Office of Fair Trading page, an agent who recommends a reserve must give the seller an analysis comparing at least three properties of similar standard or condition, sold within five kilometres in the last six months. Copies of that analysis may be given to potential bidders only if the seller agrees in writing. The second is the search filter on listing websites. An agent may give a price or a price range to an electronic listings provider so the property appears in the right search bracket, but the provider must not display it and must show a prescribed statement instead.
On the listing
The sentence that replaces a price on an auction listing
Section 10 of the Property Occupations Regulation 2014 sets the wording for sections 214 and 216 of the Act: the property is being sold by auction or without a price, and therefore a price guide can not be provided. It adds that the website may have filtered the property into a price bracket for website functionality purposes.
## What the agent does with the offer
The agent works for the seller. The conduct standards in Part 5 of the Property Occupations Regulation 2014 put that in one sentence: under section 22, a property agent must act in accordance with a client's instructions unless it is contrary to that division of the conduct standards or otherwise unlawful to do so. The section gives two examples. An agent must not market a property at a price or on terms different from those the client authorised, and must not offer to sell on terms different from those the client authorised. A second subsection adds that the price at which an agent offers to sell must be in accordance with the client's written instructions.
Read with a prior offer in mind, that section explains most of what a buyer experiences. The agent cannot accept the offer, reject it or reshape it on the seller's behalf without instructions. The agent cannot tell a buyer that a figure "will get it done" unless the seller has said so, and for a price, said so in writing. And the decision to stop the campaign early belongs to the seller, not to the agency.
The Regulation's conduct standards, as they stood when read for this guide, do not contain a separate clause headed "offers" that spells out how quickly each one must reach the client. The obligation comes from the appointment and from section 22: an agent who sat on an offer would be deciding the outcome in place of the seller. Section 18 points the same way, barring an agent from acting where the agent's duty or interests conflict with the client's. A seller who wants certainty can settle the point at the start, by telling the agent in writing whether offers before auction are to be brought forward, and how.
A buyer can help the process by making the offer complete. A figure alone gives the seller little to decide on. A figure with a deposit amount, a settlement date, any conditions and a time by which an answer is wanted is something a seller can accept, refuse or counter.
## The seller's four answers
Once an offer is in front of the seller, the range of replies is short. Each one has a different legal result, which is why the choice matters more than it first appears.
What a seller can instruct when an offer arrives earlyGeneral position, each case depends on the contract
Answer
What happens
How a sale would be formed
Decline
The campaign continues to the advertised date. The buyer may still register and bid.
At auction, if the hammer falls
Counter
The seller names terms through the agent. Nothing binds either side until a contract is signed.
By signed contract, if agreed
Accept
Both sides sign a contract and the auction is called off.
By signed contract
Bring the auction forward
The auction is held early so every interested buyer can bid against the offer.
At auction, if the hammer falls
Two of the four end in a sale by auction and two in a sale by contract. That split, and not the price, is what decides whether the buyer has a cooling-off period. It also decides how much the seller learns about the market before committing. Declining and bringing the auction forward both keep the competition alive. Accepting ends it, and the seller will never know what the room would have paid.
## Not an auction sale: the cooling-off period comes back
The Queensland Government's page on the cooling-off period says that the standard contract for buying a home comes with a cooling-off period of five business days, and that auctions have none. The Office of Fair Trading's industry page on the cooling-off period, last updated on 12 May 2022, lists the sales that are exempt. They are a sale by auction; a follow-up sale after an unsuccessful auction, if made before 5pm on the second business day and the buyer was a registered bidder; and an option contract or a contract formed from one. The cooling-off period also does not apply where the buyer is a publicly listed corporation or its subsidiary, the State or a statutory body, or someone buying at least three lots at the same time.
A contract signed before the auction is not on that list. It is not formed by auction, because no hammer fell. It is not a follow-up sale, because no auction has taken place. Being registered to bid does not change this: the registered-bidder exemption is tied to an unsuccessful auction that has already happened. On the published list, then, a home bought by private contract during an auction campaign carries the same five business days as any other private treaty sale. In the Property Occupations Act 2014 the rules sit in three consecutive sections: section 166 on the cooling-off period, section 167 on waiving or shortening it, and section 168 on terminating a contract during it.
Three ways to buy during an auction campaignCooling-off position under the Office of Fair Trading's list of exempt sales
Route
When the contract is formed
Cooling-off period
Contract signed before auction day
When both sides have signed
Five business days, unless the buyer waives or shortens it in writing
Auction, on the original or an earlier date
At the fall of the hammer
None
Registered bidder, after the property is passed in
By 5pm on the second business day after the auction
None
Office of Fair Trading, cooling-off period for residential property contracts, last updated 12 May 2022.
The wording of the third row varies a little between official pages. The Office of Fair Trading's industry page writes of a follow-up sale made before 5pm on the second business day. The Queensland Government's consumer pages on the cooling-off period and on buying property at auction, the second last updated on 14 October 2024, describe a private treaty contract entered into within 2 business days of an unsuccessful auction of the property. Anyone relying on that window in a real sale should have the dates checked against the Act.
The mechanics are the same as in any private sale. The Queensland Government's page says the period starts on the day the buyer receives a copy of the contract signed by both parties, or on the next business day if that day is a weekend or public holiday, and ends at 5pm on the fifth day. A buyer who receives the signed contract on a Wednesday, in a fortnight with no public holiday, can therefore withdraw until 5pm on the following Tuesday. To do so the buyer gives the seller or the seller's agent signed written notice before that time.
## Waiving or shortening: what auction conditions means
Sellers who entertain a prior offer often ask for it "on auction conditions". The phrase has no definition in the sources read for this guide. In practice it describes a contract that reproduces what the auction would have delivered: no finance clause, no building and pest clause, the deposit and settlement date the seller had planned for, and no cooling-off period.
The first three are matters of contract. A buyer can simply leave the conditions out. The fourth is different, because the cooling-off period is given by statute and the seller cannot strike it out. Only the buyer can remove it. The Office of Fair Trading's industry page says the buyer can waive the cooling-off period entirely, or shorten it so that it ends at 5pm on a specific day, and that this must be in writing and must state which option the buyer has chosen. Crown Law's 2014 summary of the Property Occupations Act noted that this written notice replaced the lawyer's certificate the earlier legislation required.
The request is common enough to have drawn comment from the profession. In an article published in June 2023, the law firm Cooper Grace Ward observed that many sellers ask buyers to waive their cooling-off rights when signing, and that a buyer who does so loses the opportunity to terminate under cooling-off. A buyer who agrees is in the position of a successful bidder: bound from the moment the contract is formed, with only the contract's own terms to rely on.
> Before auction day, the buyer holds a right the hammer would have taken away. Whether it survives the signing is the buyer's decision alone.
## Bringing the auction forward
A seller who likes the offer but suspects others would pay more can instruct the agent to hold the auction early. The buyer who made the offer is usually invited to open the bidding at that figure, and every other interested party is told the new date.
For the seller the attraction is that the sale becomes an auction sale again. If the hammer falls, the contract is formed by auction and the exemption applies: no cooling-off period, no waiver to obtain, no conditions. The rules of the day are those of any Queensland auction. Section 23 of the Property Occupations Regulation 2014 requires the auctioneer to keep a register of bidders, to tell people considering a bid that only bids from registered bidders will be accepted, and to register a person only on their name, address and satisfactory evidence of identity. Section 24 requires any bid by the seller or the seller's agent to be disclosed as such and caps it at the reserve.
For the buyer who made the offer the result is mixed. The figure offered is now public in effect, since it sets the floor for the bidding, and the buyer may pay more than was offered or lose the property. A buyer who made the offer precisely because an unconditional bid was impossible gains nothing from an earlier auction. That is worth knowing before the offer is made: a buyer can state that the offer lapses if the auction date is changed, though the seller is free to ignore the condition and change the date anyway.
For other buyers the risk is time. A date pulled forward by a week can leave a buyer without a finished building inspection or a lender's answer. No rule in the conduct standards read for this guide fixes a minimum notice for a changed auction date, so the notice given is a matter of the seller's instructions and the agent's practice.
## The contract and the deposit
A prior offer does not call for a special contract. The Office of Fair Trading's auction page notes that the conditions of sale for an auction, such as the required deposit, are disclosed to bidders and that the unsigned sale contract may be used to disclose them. That same document, already prepared for the day, is usually what a pre-auction buyer is handed.
Buyers should read it as an auction contract. Writing in November 2025, the Brisbane firm Spot On Conveyancing described the contract provided for an auction as unconditional and drafted in favour of the seller, with special conditions that the seller's side may have added. The firm also noted that auction deposits are often 10 per cent, where private sales typically ask for 3 to 5 per cent, and that a buyer hoping to compete with an early offer would probably need to drop finance and building and pest conditions. None of those terms is fixed by law, and each can be negotiated before signing.
The deposit follows the ordinary rules. According to the Office of Fair Trading, the buyer pays it at the time stated in the contract's reference schedule, the seller's agent usually holds it and must place it in a trust account, and the agent must not release it until the seller is entitled to it at settlement or the buyer has lawfully cancelled.
If the buyer kept the cooling-off period and uses it, the arithmetic is simple. The seller may deduct a penalty of up to 0.25 per cent of the purchase price and must refund the rest of the deposit within 14 days. As a worked example with illustrative figures: on a price of $900,000 with a 10 per cent deposit of $90,000, the most the seller could keep is $2,250, and at least $87,750 would be returned. The seller would then be back on the market, with or without an auction date left to return to.
## What happens to the other interested buyers
Buyers who have inspected the property, ordered reports and arranged finance for auction day often assume they will be told if an offer comes in. Many agents do tell them, because a seller with two keen buyers is better placed than a seller with one. The call is a matter of the seller's instructions under section 22, though, not a right the other buyers hold. A seller may prefer a quick, private sale to one buyer and instruct the agent accordingly.
The practical step for a buyer is to make interest known early and in plain terms: tell the agent that an offer may be made, ask to be told if the seller is considering one, and ask whether the seller has said offers before auction will be looked at. The agent can answer the last question without touching the price guide rule, because it concerns process and not value.
When a contract is signed and the auction called off, the campaign simply ends. If the buyer kept a cooling-off period, the sale is not yet certain, and an under-bidder who stays in touch with the agent for that week loses nothing by doing so.
## From first call to signed contract
The sequence below is the general path of an offer that the seller chooses to accept. A declined offer stops at the third step, and an auction brought forward leaves the path there too.
The path of an accepted offer before auction
The offerThe buyer gives the agent a price, deposit, settlement date, any conditions and a deadline, in writing.
To the sellerThe agent puts the offer to the seller and takes instructions. No price guide is given to the buyer.
The seller's answerDecline, counter, accept, or bring the auction forward for open bidding.
SigningBoth sides sign the contract. The buyer decides in writing whether to waive or shorten cooling-off.
After signingThe deposit goes to trust, the auction is cancelled, and any cooling-off period runs to 5pm on its last day.
For a seller, three questions are worth settling with the agent before the campaign starts and not in the hour an offer arrives: whether offers before auction will be considered at all, on what terms, and whether a strong offer should lead to a private sale or to an earlier auction. Written instructions on each make the agent's job clear and match the way section 22 is framed.
For a buyer, the questions are about what is being given up. A contract without a finance clause or a building and pest clause, with the cooling-off period waived, is as final as a winning bid. A contract that keeps the five business days leaves a way out at a cost of no more than 0.25 per cent of the price, and a seller may accept a lower figure from someone prepared to waive. Because the position depends on the wording of the contract and on dates counted in business days, both sides usually have a solicitor read the document before anyone signs.