Two sessions a year: how a Queensland auctioneer stays licensed

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Kooky

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

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An auctioneer licence can be a person's whole working life, or a second credential used on a few Saturdays a year beside a full week of listing and selling. The Property Occupations Act 2014 draws no line between the two. It treats the auctioneer licence as a licence like any other, with its own expiry date, its own renewal application and, since the middle of 2025, its own place in the yearly training rule that the industry calls CPD. A licence that is rarely used is maintained on exactly the same terms as one that is used every day.

This guide is about that maintenance, for the holder of an auctioneer licence and nobody else. It sets out what a renewal application has to contain, how the continuing professional development requirement applies to auctioneers and what it means at renewal, what happens in the three months after a missed expiry date, how a licence can be set aside for a time, who has to be in charge of an auctioneering business, and the powers the regulator holds over a licence while it runs. The magazine has separate guides on CPD and on keeping a licence written for property agents generally. On most points the auctioneer's position is the same as the agent's, and each section says so where the sources allow it to be said. The rules are described in general terms, and an individual licence holder's position depends on their own dates and history.

Office of Fair Trading, "About continuing professional development for the property industry", updated 15 May 2026, and "Renew or restore your property licence or registration", updated 20 August 2025.

One licence among several, on the same rules

The first thing an auctioneer needs to know is whether the general rules for property licences reach them, and the sources answer yes.

The Office of Fair Trading publishes one page on renewing and restoring property licences and registrations, last updated on 20 August 2025, and its text speaks of Queensland real estate agents and auctioneers together. Its CPD page, updated on 15 May 2026, lists four groups who must complete the training: real estate agents, real property auctioneers, resident letting agents and holders of a registration certificate. The Act's renewal provisions, sections 58 to 60, are written for "a licensee" without distinguishing between categories.

The practical result is that an auctioneer does not have a lighter regime because of how often the licence is used, and does not have a heavier one because of what it authorises. The differences that exist are matters of circumstance. A person who holds an auctioneer licence and a real estate agent licence has two documents with, possibly, two expiry dates. A contract auctioneer who never handles a deposit may have a different answer to the trust account question at renewal from an agency principal. And an auctioneer who works alone may be the only person who notices the renewal notice arrive.

Renewal: the term, the notice and the deadline

The Office of Fair Trading's renewal page gives the outline. A licence can be renewed for one year or for three. The office sends a renewal notice, including the renewal form, four to six weeks before the expiry date. Renewal can be done online, in person at an office, or by post to the Industry Licensing Unit. The page gives a processing time of four to six weeks and, in the version read for this guide, warns that the office is receiving more applications than usual. Fees apply, and the page refers to the fair trading fee list for the amounts.

The Act supplies the deadline. Under section 58, a licensee may only apply for renewal before the licence expires. An application made the day after is not a late renewal: it is an application for restoration, with its own rules.

Section 60 covers the gap between applying and hearing back. If a renewal application has been made, the licence is taken to continue in force from the day it would otherwise have expired until the application is decided, or withdrawn, or taken to have been withdrawn. An auctioneer who applied in time and has auctions booked for the week after the expiry date is therefore still licensed while the regulator works through the file. The protection depends on the application having been made before expiry, which is why the four to six weeks of notice matter more than the processing time.

What the renewal application has to carry

Section 58 lists what goes in with the application, and since the CPD rule arrived it has three kinds of content.

The first is money: the application fee and the licence renewal fee, both prescribed by regulation.

The second concerns trust money. The application must come with either an audit report for all trust accounts the licensee kept during the relevant audit period, or a statutory declaration that the licensee did not operate a trust account during that period. The Office of Fair Trading's page says the declaration uses prescribed wording. For auctioneers this is the item most likely to differ from one licence holder to the next. An auctioneer engaged by agencies to call their sales may never have operated a trust account, in which case the declaration is the document. An auctioneer who runs a business that receives deposits is in the other group. Either way, one of the two documents has to be there.

The third is the CPD statement. Where the Act's CPD obligation applies to the licensee, section 58 requires a statement that the licensee has complied with it for each CPD year ending within the term of the current licence, or evidence that exceptional circumstances apply. The Office of Fair Trading's CPD page says these declarations have been required at renewal and restoration from 6 June 2026, and describes three possible answers on the form: a statement of compliance, a declaration that the holder is exempt, or evidence of exceptional circumstances.

The phrase "each CPD year ending within the term" has a consequence for anyone on a three-year licence. The statement covers every CPD year that ended while that licence ran, so a year missed early in a three-year term is still in question when the term ends.

The CPD rule, and where auctioneers stand in it

Mandatory continuing professional development is recent in Queensland. The Real Estate Institute of Queensland, in a question-and-answer article published on 13 May 2025, gives the start date as 6 June 2025 and names auctioneers in its list of those covered, alongside sales agents, property managers, buyer's agents, business brokers and resident letting agents. The Office of Fair Trading's page is categorical about scope: the listed licence and certificate holders must complete CPD regardless of their job, position or role.

That last phrase settles a question that matters to occasional auctioneers. The obligation follows the licence, and the amount of auctioneering actually done in the year plays no part in it. A person who holds a real property auctioneer licence is covered whether they call two hundred auctions in the year or none.

The requirement itself is two approved CPD sessions in each CPD year. The regulator divides sessions into two types and allows two combinations: one Type 1 session with one Type 2 session, or two Type 1 sessions. The REIQ's article explains the difference. A Type 1 session is an accredited unit of competency delivered by a registered training organisation and drawn from the nationally accredited real estate qualifications, or an approved condensed version of one. A Type 2 session is directed at service delivery, consumer satisfaction and professional ethics, including communication and negotiation skills. The REIQ describes sessions of two to three hours.

Three further points come from the Office of Fair Trading's page.

• Only sessions on the regulator's published list count. The page says the approved sessions carry codes beginning with QLDCPD20, and that completed units under the national property services training package also count.
• The holder must keep the proof-of-completion document for five years and produce it to the office on request.
• The CPD year is personal. It is set by the issue date of the licence or registration, so two auctioneers in the same agency can have years that begin months apart. The REIQ puts it as the anniversary of the issue date and gives the example of a holder whose anniversary is 1 August, who keeps evidence of courses from that date.

Nothing in the sources read for this guide sets out a separate list of sessions for auctioneers or requires an auctioneer's sessions to be about auctioning. The combinations and the approved list are the same for every covered licence.

Holding an auctioneer licence beside another licence

An auctioneer may also hold a real estate agent licence, obtained before or after the auctioneer licence. The Office of Fair Trading's page deals with this through the CPD year, not through the number of sessions.

Where a person holds more than one licence, the page says the CPD year is determined by the one with the earliest issue date. Where a person upgrades or changes a licence, the CPD year aligns with the new issue date. The page states the requirement as two approved sessions each CPD year, and by giving a holder of several licences a single CPD year, it describes one yearly obligation for that person. Nothing on the page read says that the sessions are multiplied by the number of licences held.

For an auctioneer this is worth checking against the documents themselves. A person who obtained an agent licence some years ago and added an auctioneer licence later has, on the page's rule, a CPD year that runs from the earlier date, even though the auctioneer licence may expire in a different month. The renewal statement under section 58 is then made for each licence at its own renewal, about CPD years that are counted from one shared date.

Exemptions, and the year that goes wrong

The Office of Fair Trading lists exemptions that apply automatically. A licence or registration first issued less than 12 months ago is exempt, and the page says a new holder only needs to start CPD 12 months after the current licence or registration was first issued. A licence that was deactivated for most of the CPD year is exempt for that year. Two further exemptions concern holders of limited real estate agent licences for affordable housing or business letting, and people who represent public sector agencies, and neither is specific to auctioneers.

Beyond those, the page describes an exemption for exceptional circumstances, available on application, for a holder who was unable to complete CPD in a given year. This is the "evidence that exceptional circumstances apply" that section 58 allows in place of the statement of compliance.

What happens to an auctioneer who simply did not do the sessions is stated in two places. The regulator's page says a holder who has not completed CPD may not be eligible to renew, and that an application cannot be processed until the CPD is complete. The Act frames it as a matter the decision-maker must weigh: under section 59, in deciding whether to renew or refuse to renew, the chief executive must have regard to whether the licensee complied for each CPD year ending within the term, or did not comply but exceptional circumstances apply.

After a missed expiry date: restoration

Section 61 of the Act gives a second chance with a time limit. If a licence expires, the person may apply for its restoration, and the application must be made within three months after the expiry.

The restoration application carries the same supporting material as a renewal. It must come with the audit report or the statutory declaration about trust accounts, and, where the CPD obligation applied to the expired licence, a statement that the licensee complied for each CPD year ending within its term, or evidence that exceptional circumstances applied. Section 63 then governs the decision to restore or refuse, with the same regard to CPD compliance as at renewal. A lapse does not wipe the training record clean: the years of the expired licence are still asked about.

The Office of Fair Trading's page adds the working rule. If the office receives the application within the three months, the holder can continue working while it is processed. If no application is made in that time, the licence has expired for good, the person must stop working, and the route back is an application for a new licence.

For an auctioneer with bookings, the three months are a margin, and the date that follows them is final. The same page that reassures a late applicant also tells one who waited past the window to stop.

Putting the licence aside: deactivation and surrender

An auctioneer who expects not to call auctions for a period has two formal options in the Act, and they are very different.

Deactivation is in section 75. A licensee may ask the chief executive to deactivate the licence, in the approved form, with the licence and the prescribed fee. The licence is taken to be deactivated when those three things are received. A deactivated licence does not authorise the holder to perform any activity under it, so no auction may be called on it. Deactivation does not affect the term of the licence and does not entitle the holder to a refund of fees for the balance of the term. The holder may later ask for the licence to be reactivated. The link with CPD is the exemption already described: a licence deactivated for most of a CPD year is exempt for that year.

Surrender is in section 74. A licensee may surrender the licence by giving written notice to the chief executive and returning it, and a surrendered licence stops having effect on the day it is surrendered. The section contains no way back from that.

The Office of Fair Trading's renewal page also links to a page on updating licence details. That page was not read for this guide, so the particular changes a licence holder must report, and the time allowed, are not set out here.

Who is in charge of an auctioneering business

A licence can be held by a company as well as by an individual, and the Act attaches a condition to the corporate form. Under section 45, a corporation is eligible to obtain an auctioneer licence only if a person in charge of the corporation's auctioneer business is an auctioneer.

Section 19 defines the phrase. A person is in charge of a licensee's business at a place where the licensee carries on business only if the person personally supervises, manages or controls the conduct of the business at that place. The definition is about what the person actually does. A name on a form does not satisfy it if the supervision is carried out by someone else.

For an individual auctioneer who is the person in charge of a company's auctioneering business, staying licensed therefore has a second layer. Their own renewal, their own CPD statement and their own expiry date are also part of what keeps the corporation eligible for its licence.

The Act also provides for absence. Under section 66, a principal licensee may appoint an adult as a substitute licensee for a period of not more than 30 days, if the licensee will be absent from the registered office for that period, the adult consents, and any insurance condition on the licence is met for the substitute. A principal licensee who will be absent for more than 30 days must apply to the chief executive, in the approved form, for the appointment or its extension, and the section carries a maximum penalty of 200 penalty units. Section 70 caps the arrangement: a principal licensee may not appoint a substitute for themselves for more than 12 weeks in any period of 12 months.

The regulator's powers over a licence that is running

Renewal comes round every one or three years, but the licence is open to the regulator's attention in between. The Act gives the chief executive several distinct powers, and they are described here as process only.

The first is conditions. Under section 54, a licence may be issued on the conditions the chief executive considers necessary or desirable for the proper performance of the activities it authorises. A condition may limit or prohibit an activity, or require the licensee to hold insurance of a prescribed kind and amount. Under section 71, conditions can be amended in three ways: on the licensee's application, on the order of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal after a disciplinary hearing, or on the chief executive's own initiative. In the last case the licensee must first be given written notice and the opportunity to make written submissions by a stated day, not later than 14 days after the notice. That step can be skipped only where the chief executive decides the amendment must be made urgently, to avoid potential claims against the fund or to ensure compliance with the legislation.

The second is immediate suspension, in section 76. The chief executive may suspend a licence, whether or not disciplinary proceedings have been started, on grounds the section lists. They include the chief executive reasonably considering that the licence was obtained, renewed or restored because of materially incorrect or misleading information; reasonably considering that an irregularity or deficiency exists in the licensee's trust account; being satisfied that the licensee failed to file an audit report as required; the appointment of a receiver; and reasonably considering that the licensee has contravened or is contravening the Act or its companion Administration Act, or is likely or proposing to do so.

The first of those grounds ties the suspension power back to the renewal form. A statement about trust accounts or about CPD that turns out to be materially incorrect is, on the section's wording, something the chief executive can act on after the renewal has been granted.

The third is the tribunal. Section 71 refers to orders of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal after a disciplinary hearing, which places disciplinary hearings before the tribunal and not the regulator. The provisions that set out the grounds for those proceedings and the orders available sit later in the Act than the text read for this guide, and they are not summarised here.

Whatever the route, one duty follows. Under section 73, a person whose licence has been suspended or cancelled must return it to the chief executive within 14 days, unless the person has a reasonable excuse, and the section carries a maximum penalty of 100 penalty units.

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.

About Kooky and Shaka →