# Selling a Queensland home without an agent: what the law still asks
No agent does not mean fewer rules. What a private seller in Queensland still owes the buyer, who holds the deposit, and where a lawyer and the ATO come in.
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Every so often a Queensland owner decides to sell a home without a real estate agent. The Queensland Government says plainly that this is allowed: an owner can sell privately without the help of an agent. What the decision removes is the agent, the agency agreement and the commission. What it does not remove is almost everything else. The duties that the law places on a seller stay with the seller, and the jobs an agent would normally carry out on the seller's behalf do not disappear either. They move to the owner, or to the owner's lawyer.
This guide follows a private sale from the first decision to settlement day. It covers the seller disclosure statement, the contract and its warning statement, the cooling-off period, pool and smoke alarm duties, what a private seller may say about price, getting a listing in front of buyers, who holds the deposit, the identity checks that still happen, and the tax clearance certificate that every seller needs to think about. Several of these subjects have their own guides in this magazine; here, the focus is on what changes, and what does not, when no agent is involved.
5business days of cooling-off for most buyers
0.25%of the price kept if a buyer cools off
15%withheld at settlement without a clearance certificate
Office of Fair Trading guidance on cooling-off periods; Australian Taxation Office guidance on foreign resident capital gains withholding, for contracts signed from 1 January 2025.
## What an agent's absence really changes
In an agency sale, the seller signs an appointment, the agent markets the home, handles enquiries, runs inspections, negotiates, prepares or passes on the contract, and usually holds the deposit in the agency's trust account. The seller's lawyer then takes over the legal side through to settlement.
In a private sale, the marketing, the enquiries, the inspections and the negotiation all fall to the owner. The legal paperwork falls, in practice, to a lawyer the owner engages earlier than usual, because there is no agent to put the contract together or to hold money. Nothing in the seller's own legal duties shrinks: the disclosure statement, the warning statement in the contract, the pool and smoke alarm rules and the tax clearance all apply in the same way.
Who does what, with and without an agentTypical arrangements in a Queensland residential sale
Task
Agency sale
Private sale
Marketing and listing
Agent
Owner, or a paid listing route
Inspections and enquiries
Agent
Owner
Disclosure statement
Seller, with help from the agent or a lawyer
Seller, often with a lawyer
Contract preparation
Agent or lawyer
Lawyer, in most cases
Holding the deposit
Agent's trust account, usually
A deposit holder named in the contract, often the seller's lawyer
Settlement and title transfer
Lawyer
Lawyer
Office of Fair Trading cooling-off guidance; Queensland Government guidance on appointing a solicitor; REIQ seller disclosure information.
The table shows the pattern: the private seller takes on the commercial work and hands more of the legal work to a lawyer. The sections below go through the legal side one step at a time.
## The disclosure statement still comes first
Since 1 August 2025, the seller disclosure scheme under the Property Law Act 2023 has applied to sales of residential property, commercial property and vacant land in Queensland. The Queensland Government's page on the scheme says the seller, or the seller's agent if authorised, must give the buyer a disclosure statement and the prescribed certificates before the buyer signs the contract. For a sale by auction, they must be given or made available before the fall of the hammer.
The duty belongs to the seller, not to an agent, so a private sale is caught in exactly the same way. The REIQ's general information for sellers notes that a seller may prepare the disclosure statement, known as Form 2, themselves, or have it prepared by an agent, a solicitor or another provider. The statement must be true when it is given and must be signed by the seller; electronic signatures are allowed.
The consequence of getting it wrong is the same with or without an agent. According to the Queensland Government, a buyer may be able to terminate at any time up to settlement if the seller did not give the documents before the buyer signed, or if the information was inaccurate or incomplete. For inaccurate or incomplete information, the buyer must show the matter was material, that they did not know about it when they signed, and that they would not have signed had they known.
Exemptions are narrow. The REIQ lists, among others, sales between related parties where the buyer gives a waiver notice, sales to government bodies and listed corporations, and sales over $10 million including GST where the buyer waives disclosure. An ordinary private sale of a family home is not exempt. The work of gathering the title search, the survey plan, the zoning information and the other certificates is covered in detail in this magazine's guide to preparing the statement; for a private seller, the point is simply that it has to be finished before any buyer is asked to sign.
## The contract and its warning statement
Many Queensland sales use a standard contract. The standard contract for houses and residential land carries the approval of both the REIQ and the Queensland Law Society; a recent edition, used by Redland City Council for its own land sales, refers throughout to the Property Law Act 2023 and to the seller disclosure statement.
Whatever the form, one requirement concerns private sellers directly. The Office of Fair Trading says a residential sale contract must include a warning statement on the page the buyer signs, directly above the buyer's signature. It must tell the buyer that the contract may be subject to a five business day statutory cooling-off period, that a termination penalty of 0.25 per cent of the purchase price applies if the buyer terminates during that period, and that the buyer should obtain an independent valuation and independent legal advice before signing.
The same page is direct about who is responsible: if the statement is missing, the seller or the seller's agent who gave the contract to the buyer commits an offence and may face a large fine or prosecution. In a private sale, the person who hands over the contract is the seller. A standard contract prepared by a lawyer already carries the statement in the right place, which is one of the quieter reasons the Queensland Government's guidance on private sales opens with the advice to always have a solicitor check a sale contract before signing it.
The contract also records the things a private seller and buyer have to settle between them without an agent in the middle: the price, the deposit and when it is due, the deposit holder, the settlement date, any finance or building and pest conditions, and what is included in the sale. Each of these has its own guide in this magazine. The difference in a private sale is that every term is negotiated directly between seller and buyer, or between their lawyers.
## Cooling-off, managed by the seller
The Office of Fair Trading's guidance on cooling-off sets out the rules a private seller has to manage personally. The period is five business days. It starts on the day the buyer receives a copy of the contract signed by both parties; if that day falls on a weekend or public holiday, it starts on the next business day. It ends at 5pm on the fifth business day.
A buyer who wants to cool off must give written notice by that deadline. If they do, the seller may keep a penalty of up to 0.25 per cent of the purchase price from the deposit and must refund the rest within 14 days. A buyer can also waive the period entirely, or shorten it to 5pm on a named day, by notice in writing.
There is no cooling-off for a sale at auction, for a sale to a registered bidder before 5pm on the second business day after an auction that passed in, for sales arising from an option, or for certain buyers such as the State, statutory bodies and listed corporations, according to the same guidance.
Two practical points weigh more heavily on a private seller. First, if there is a dispute about when the contract was delivered, the guidance says the seller or the seller's agent must prove it. With no agent keeping a file, a seller needs a record of exactly when and how the signed contract reached the buyer. Second, the notice to terminate can arrive by email, so someone has to be watching for it. Having the lawyer send the signed contract is one way to create that record.
No agent, same duties
Three documents a private seller answers for
The disclosure statement and certificates must reach the buyer before they sign. The contract must carry the warning statement above the buyer's signature. For a regulated pool without a current certificate, a Form 36 goes to the buyer and the QBCC before settlement.
## Pool and smoke alarm duties, briefly
Both subjects have their own guides in this magazine, so only the essentials are set out here.
For a home with a non-shared regulated pool, the QBCC's guidance says a seller with a current pool safety certificate must give the buyer a copy before settlement. A seller who cannot obtain one must complete a Form 36, the notice of no pool safety certificate, give a copy to the buyer and lodge it with the QBCC before settlement; the buyer then has 90 days after settlement to obtain a certificate. The QBCC's guide for home owners describes the Form 36 as completed as part of the contract of sale, and the standard contract treats a notice given before the contract was entered into as the alternative to a certificate at settlement. A Form 36 is not an exemption: the barrier must comply with the pool safety standard at all times. For a shared pool, usually in a body corporate, the certificate lasts one year rather than two, and the pool owner has the 90 days.
For smoke alarms, the Queensland Fire Department says that when a contract of sale is signed after 31 December 2021, the seller must upgrade the dwelling to the current standard before transfer, and must declare on the Property Information (Transfer) form, known as Form 24, that this has been done. Under the standard contract, if the seller has not complied, the buyer may claim an adjustment of 0.15 per cent of the purchase price at settlement, if the buyer claims it in writing on or before settlement. From 1 January 2027, every existing private home, townhouse and unit in Queensland must have interconnected photoelectric smoke alarms.
## What a private seller may say about price
Most of Queensland's price rules are written for licensed agents. The Office of Fair Trading's page on property advertising begins with licensed property agents and the duty not to engage in misleading or deceptive conduct. It says an offers-over price should be the minimum the vendor is willing to accept, and that setting a price the agent knows the vendor will not accept is false advertising.
The national Australian Consumer Law, which carries large penalties for false or misleading representations about land, applies to conduct in trade or commerce. An analysis by the law firm HWL Ebsworth notes that courts have long held that an individual selling their own home is generally not acting in trade or commerce. The same analysis adds that this depends on the seller's motivation and conduct: an investment property, a home partly used for a business, or a builder selling homes as a source of income can be treated differently.
That is not a licence to say anything. For a private seller, the more immediate risk sits in Queensland's own disclosure scheme. The disclosure statement must be accurate when it is given, and a buyer who signed on the strength of a material error may be able to walk away at any time before settlement. An advertisement that contradicts the disclosure statement, or a conversation at an inspection that plays down something the statement records, invites exactly the dispute a seller wants to avoid.
On setting the asking price itself, the Queensland Government's guidance on selling privately suggests getting an independent valuation, asking a local agent about the asking prices of similar homes, reading listings and visiting open homes. This magazine's guide to asking prices covers how those numbers are read.
## Getting the listing in front of buyers
Marketing is where the owner does most of the work an agent would have done, and where the practical limits show. The national property portals are the obvious place to be seen, and access for a private seller is not the same as for an agency. A conveyancing firm's 2026 guide to selling without an agent in Queensland notes that some major portals may require a private seller to go through an online listing platform or a so-called hybrid agent to appear there.
Those routes are paid services, and they vary in what they include: a portal listing alone, photography and signboards, or help with inspections and offers. A seller who signs an appointment with a licensed agent, even for part of the work, is no longer selling entirely without one, and the rules on agency appointments then apply.
Beyond the portals, private sellers rely on signage, local networks and social media. Whatever the channel, the content of the listing matters for the reasons in the section above: the description, the photographs and any price wording should match what the disclosure statement says.
## Inspections, offers and negotiation
The Queensland Government's private sale guidance suggests that a seller consider repairs before listing and arrange building, pest and pool inspections to identify problems early. A building and pest inspector must hold a current QBCC licence. A buyer may also arrange their own inspections, and the Queensland Government notes that a condition such as a satisfactory building and pest inspection only binds if it is written into the contract.
Without an agent, the owner fields every enquiry, shows the home and hears every offer. Two habits help. The first is to keep every offer in writing, with the conditions attached to it, so the comparison between a higher conditional offer and a lower unconditional one is clear. The second is to send serious buyers to the seller's lawyer once a price is agreed in principle, so the contract is prepared properly and no one signs a document that has not been through the disclosure and warning statement steps.
The Queensland Government's guidance adds one piece of advice that applies to both sides: do not sign if uneasy about the sale. Nothing obliges a private seller to sign on the spot because a buyer is ready.
## The deposit: who holds it
In an agency sale, the deposit usually goes into the agent's trust account. The Office of Fair Trading's cooling-off guidance describes the agent holding it in trust and being unable to release it until the seller is entitled to it at settlement, or the buyer has lawfully cancelled. In a private sale, there is no agency trust account to use.
The standard contract deals with this through a named deposit holder. Its reference schedule has fields for the deposit holder and the deposit holder's trust account, and the deposit holder keeps the money until a party becomes entitled to it. The copy used by Redland City Council shows how the mechanism works: the council itself is the deposit holder, its trust account is named, the initial deposit is 10 per cent of the price payable on the day the buyer signs unless another time is written in, and the deposit is invested only if the seller or buyer instructs it and it is lawful. The seller is entitled to the interest on an invested deposit until settlement or termination. The contract also provides that where the seller's solicitor receives the deposit, the solicitor holds it as deposit holder under the contract.
In a private sale, the deposit holder is therefore commonly the seller's solicitor, holding the money in the law practice's trust account. A conveyancing firm's guide for Queensland buyers describes the deposit as held in trust either by the agent or by the seller's solicitor. The way solicitors' trust accounts work, and the protection behind them, is the subject of a separate guide in this magazine.
## Identity checks still happen
From 1 July 2026, real estate agents in Australia became regulated under the anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws, and they now check the identity of the sellers they act for. A private seller without an agent is outside that particular obligation. AUSTRAC's guidance on the real estate reforms says that private sales of residential property are not captured under the designated services that apply to real estate businesses.
That does not mean a private sale passes without identity checks. The same AUSTRAC page says lawyers and conveyancers who help plan or carry out the sale, purchase or transfer of real estate may be regulated under different designated services. AUSTRAC's guidance for professional service providers, last updated on 12 June 2026, confirms that assisting with a transaction to sell real estate is a designated service, that the customer is the person the lawyer acts for, which on the selling side is the seller, and that for a seller the service typically starts once a buyer and seller agree on the price, before any deposit is paid or contract exchanged.
In practice, a private seller who engages a lawyer should expect to be identified by that lawyer, much as an agency seller is identified by the agent. Separate verification of identity steps also apply before an electronic settlement, as covered in this magazine's guide on that check.
## The lawyer's part, and the tax clearance
The Queensland Government's guidance on appointing a solicitor lists what a seller can ask a solicitor to do: draft the contract so its terms are appropriate, help complete the disclosure documents and check the contract before signing. The solicitor then deals with the buyer or the buyer's solicitor to resolve issues from pre-settlement inspections, receive the final payment and transfer the title. The same page advises choosing a firm that is not connected to any other party in the sale, such as the buyer, and asking for a detailed quote first.
It is possible to do the conveyancing without a lawyer, and this magazine's guide to the do-it-yourself paper trail sets out what that involves. Most of the steps that make a private sale feel risky, though, are steps where a lawyer's involvement is built into the process: the disclosure statement, the warning statement, the trust account for the deposit and the electronic settlement.
One more document is often overlooked. According to the Australian Taxation Office, for contracts signed from 1 January 2025, foreign resident capital gains withholding applies to the sale of any Australian real property, whatever its value, at a rate of 15 per cent. An Australian resident seller avoids it by obtaining a clearance certificate from the ATO, which must be issued at or before settlement. Without a valid certificate, the buyer must withhold 15 per cent of the price and pay it to the ATO. As an illustrative example, on an $800,000 sale that would be $120,000 held back from the seller at settlement. In a private sale, there is no agent in the file to raise it, so the application is best made early.
A private sale in five stagesThe order that keeps the legal steps in place
Before listingEngage a lawyer, start the disclosure statement and apply for the ATO clearance certificate.
MarketingList the home and run inspections, with wording that matches the disclosure statement.
Price agreedThe lawyer prepares the contract with the warning statement and identifies the seller.
Contract signedDisclosure was given before signing; the deposit goes to the named deposit holder.
SettlementPool and smoke alarm duties met, Form 24 declared, title transferred.
The order is what protects the seller. A buyer asked to sign before the disclosure statement exists, or a contract handed over without the warning statement, opens the way to the termination right and the offence described above.
> Selling without an agent removes the commission, not the rules. The seller still answers for every document a buyer signs against.