# Tokenised property in Queensland: what a token is and what it is not
A token sold as a slice of a Queensland building is a record of an interest in whatever owns it. How that differs from a name on title, a fund unit and a listed trust.
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The phrase "tokenised property" puts two very different things side by side. One is a lot of Queensland land, described by its lot and plan number and recorded in a register that the State keeps under the Land Title Act 1994. The other is a digital record, issued by a private party, that says its holder is entitled to something. Property people meet the phrase more and more often, in pitches, in conference programs and in questions from clients, and the first useful step is to pull the two things apart again.
This guide does that for land in Queensland. It sets out what the Land Title Act says the freehold register is, how Australian regulators and the Commonwealth Treasury describe the arrangements sold as tokenised real estate, and how such an arrangement compares with three older ways of sharing a property: co-ownership recorded on the title, a unit-based property fund and a listed property trust. It finishes with what a token leaves untouched. It describes structures and rules; it does not assess any offer, and whether a particular arrangement suits a particular person is a matter for licensed advice.
## Two records that are easy to confuse
A Queensland lot has one authoritative record. Section 27 of the Land Title Act 1994 requires the Registrar of Titles to keep a register of freehold land, called the freehold land register. Under section 28, the Registrar must record in it the particulars needed to identify every lot brought under the Act, every registered interest in a lot, the names of the people who hold or have held those interests, and every registered instrument with its lodgement and registration dates.
Section 38 then gives the central definition. The indefeasible title for a lot is the current particulars in the freehold land register about the lot. Section 37 says that an indefeasible title is created when the particulars of the lot are recorded in the register. In other words, in Queensland the title is not a deed in a drawer or a certificate on a wall. It is the entry.
A token is a record of another kind. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission, in its Information Sheet 225 on digital assets, last updated on 30 April 2026, uses "token" as a convenient word and immediately warns about it. What ASIC says it is really referring to is the bundle of rights, benefits, expectations and product features offered to the public. The digital object is the wrapping. The legal question is what the holder is entitled to, and against whom.
So the two records answer different questions. The register answers "who owns this lot?". A token answers "what does this holder have a claim to, under the terms on which the token was issued?". The rest of this guide follows from keeping those questions apart.
## What the Queensland freehold register records
The register is kept by a public office holder. Section 6 of the Land Title Act continues the office of the Registrar of Titles, and section 7 requires the Registrar to keep a land registry that includes the freehold land register. Section 9 allows the Registrar to delegate functions to an appropriately qualified public service employee or to the titles registry operator. Day to day, the registry is run under the name Titles Queensland by Queensland Titles Registry Pty Ltd, the company named on the Titles Queensland website.
Who can appear in the register as an owner is set out in practical terms in the Land Title Practice Manual, the Registrar's published guide for people who prepare and lodge documents. Part 1 of the manual, on transfers, was updated on 28 April 2026. It deals with transferees who are individuals, including minors, whose date of birth must be shown. It deals with corporations registered by ASIC, whose Australian Company Number or Australian Registered Body Number must appear on the transfer. It deals with foreign corporations, which must prove where they were incorporated, with incorporated associations and with the body corporate of a community titles scheme.
Every entry on that list is a person or a body with its own legal identity. The manual sums up the result of registration in one sentence: under section 62 of the Act, the person or corporation registered as owner of an interest has title to it, with the protection of indefeasibility that the Act gives.
The manual's list contains no entry for a "pool", a "platform" or a set of token holders as such. When many people are to benefit from one lot, the register needs a name to record: either each of them as a co-owner, or one person or company that holds the lot for them. That choice is where tokenisation begins.
## What regulators mean by tokenised real estate
ASIC's information sheet works through a series of examples, and one of them is about real estate. In Example 9, a company issues "fractionalised property tokens" that represent interests in an apartment building. The money raised from investors is used to buy the building. The company manages the leasing, holds the profit after costs in an account for the building and may buy tokens back out of retained profits.
ASIC's view of that example is that the token is likely to be an interest in a managed investment scheme. Its reasoning does not turn on the technology. The information sheet sets out three elements of a managed investment scheme: people contribute money, or money's worth, to acquire rights to benefits; the contributions are pooled, or used in a common enterprise, to produce financial benefits; and the contributors do not have day-to-day control over the operation. A building bought with pooled money and run by the issuer fits all three.
ASIC's example
A token for part of an apartment building is treated as a scheme interest
In Example 9 of Information Sheet 225, investors' money buys a building that the issuing company leases and manages. ASIC says the token is likely to be an interest in a managed investment scheme. In the example, the company runs the building; the investors hold tokens.
The Commonwealth Treasury uses a similar picture. On 26 November 2025 the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services, Dr Daniel Mulino, announced the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025. His release describes two new types of financial product, the digital asset platform and the tokenised custody platform, and says their operators will need to hold an Australian financial services licence. It describes tokenised custody platforms as holding real-world assets, "like bonds, property and commodities", represented as digital tokens. The release also sets out an exemption for smaller, low-risk platforms that hold less than $5,000 per customer and handle less than $10 million in transactions a year.
Both descriptions share a shape. Something or someone holds the real asset. Other people hold tokens. The token is evidence of a claim against, or an interest in, the arrangement that holds the asset. The Bill passed Parliament on 1 April 2026 and the Act is due to commence on 9 April 2027; the point here is how the Commonwealth describes the structure.
## The usual structure, step by step
Put the Queensland register and the regulators' descriptions together and the usual structure has three layers. The detail varies from one arrangement to another, and the legal documents of each arrangement decide what its tokens really carry, but the outline below is the one that ASIC's example and Treasury's description both assume.
How a tokenised holding of Queensland land is usually layered
A vehicle goes on the titleA company or a trustee buys the lot and is recorded as registered owner in the freehold land register.
Investors pay in and receive tokensEach token records an interest in the vehicle or scheme, on the terms set by its issuer.
A manager runs the propertyLeasing, costs and any profit are handled for the holders, who do not control the building day to day.
Three things are worth noticing about that outline. First, the register shows one owner, however many token holders there are. A search of the title returns the vehicle's name, not theirs. Second, the investor's link to the land is indirect. It runs through a company constitution, a trust deed or a scheme constitution, and through whatever the token's terms add. Third, because the holders do not manage the property themselves, the arrangement tends to meet ASIC's description of a managed investment scheme, with the licensing and disclosure obligations that follow.
Where the vehicle is a trustee, the Queensland register does carry a trace of the trust. The practice manual requires the words "as trustee" after the transferee's name, and a Form 20, the trust details form, setting out the schedule of trusts, or else the documents that create the trust. The endorsement on title then points to the dealing in which the trust was first recorded. The registered owner is still the trustee.
## How co-ownership on title differs
The oldest way to share a property is for the sharers to go on the title together. Queensland's register provides for it directly, and the contrast with a token is sharp.
According to Part 1 of the Land Title Practice Manual, when a lot is transferred to two or more people the transfer must state how they hold: as joint tenants, as tenants in common, or as trustees. If they are tenants in common, their interests must be set out as fractions. The manual's own illustration is one quarter and three quarters where the whole of the fee simple is being transferred. If the transfer does not say how the co-owners hold, section 56(2) of the Land Title Act directs the Registrar to register them as tenants in common, and the manual says the Registrar relies on that provision only after written confirmation that the omission was intended.
A tenant in common's share is itself a registered interest. The manual notes that a separate title may be created for each tenant in common if the prescribed fee is paid when the transfer is lodged. A share can be transferred in its own right, and the manual requires the share being transferred to be expressed as a fraction of the whole lot, not as a fraction of the seller's share. A joint tenant, for their part, may sever the joint tenancy as far as their own interest goes by lodging a transfer to themselves under section 59 of the Act.
Compare that with a token holder in the usual structure. A tenant in common is named in the freehold land register and holds an interest in the land itself, recorded as a fraction. A token holder is named, if at all, in the issuer's records and holds an interest in the vehicle. A tenant in common who sells does so by a transfer lodged with the registry. A token holder who sells changes an entry in a ledger that the registry does not keep.
There is a practical side as well. Every change of a co-owner on title is a registry dealing. The manual states that all transfers must carry a duty notation, even where no transfer duty is payable, and that a transfer of the fee simple must be accompanied by a Form 24 giving property information. Co-ownership on title is direct and visible, and each change of hands passes through that process. That is one reason arrangements with many small holders are built with a single name on title.
## How a property fund differs, and how it does not
Sharing a property through units in a fund is not new, and the comparison here runs the other way: a token-based arrangement and a conventional property fund look more alike than different.
Moneysmart, the consumer finance site run by ASIC, describes a property fund, or property scheme, as an investment in which a person buys units in a pool of investors' money that a professional manager invests in property such as commercial, retail or industrial buildings. The manager looks after maintenance, administration and rent collection. Investors may receive distributions from rental income, typically quarterly or half-yearly, and may gain if the underlying properties rise in value.
Set that beside ASIC's Example 9. In both, money from many people is pooled. In both, a manager buys and runs the property. In both, the investor holds a countable interest, called a unit in one case and a token in the other, and has a share in the financial outcome of the property. ASIC's information sheet says as much in general terms: the legal status of a digital asset depends on the rights and benefits attached to it, and the electronic design does not alter whether obligations apply.
What differs is the form of the record and, sometimes, the way interests change hands. A fund keeps its register of unit holders in the ordinary way. A token-based arrangement records holdings as digital tokens. From the point of view of the Queensland land register, the two are indistinguishable: in each case the title shows the vehicle, and the investors appear nowhere on it.
Moneysmart lists the matters it suggests investors examine in a property fund's disclosure, and none of them is about technology. They include gearing, interest cover, the fund's borrowing terms, how diversified the portfolio is, the valuation policy, related party transactions, the source of distributions and the net tangible assets behind each unit. Those are questions about a building, its debts and its manager.
## How a listed property trust differs
The third comparison is with property trusts listed on a public market. Moneysmart explains that listed property funds, also called property trusts or real estate investment trusts, are traded on a public market such as the ASX. It gives two consequences. The value is transparent, because an investor can see what each unit is worth at any time, and the fund is subject to the market's listing rules and supervision.
Unlisted funds, on Moneysmart's account, are the opposite on both points. Their value is less transparent, since an investor cannot easily see whether the investment is rising or falling. They are not overseen by a market supervisor. And withdrawals may be restricted, with fees and conditions attached.
Where a tokenised property arrangement sits between those two is a question of fact about each arrangement, not something the word "token" settles. A token can be transferable in principle and still have no buyer on the day its holder wants to sell. Whether there is a market for it, who operates that market, and under what licence, are separate matters. Under the Commonwealth's new framework, passed by Parliament on 1 April 2026 and due to commence on 9 April 2027, platform operators themselves are to hold an Australian financial services licence, as the Assistant Treasurer's release of 26 November 2025 describes it.
The table below gathers the four ways of sharing a Queensland property discussed so far.
Four ways to share a Queensland propertyWho is on the title and what each participant holds
Arrangement
Name in the freehold land register
What the participant holds
Where a change of hands is recorded
Tenants in common
Each co-owner, with a fraction
A registered share of the lot
A transfer lodged with the registry
Unlisted property fund
The fund's trustee or company
Units in the fund
The fund's own records
Listed property trust
The trust's trustee or company
Units traded on a public market
The market's settlement records
Token-based arrangement
The vehicle that bought the lot
Tokens recording an interest in the vehicle or scheme
The token ledger
Sources: Land Title Practice Manual, Part 1; Moneysmart on property funds; ASIC Information Sheet 225, Example 9. The last three rows describe the usual structure, not every arrangement.
## Which rules attach to the token
Because the token is an interest in an arrangement, not in the land, the rules that govern it are mostly Commonwealth financial services rules, not Queensland land law.
ASIC's information sheet says that a digital asset is a financial product when the rights attached to it meet one of the statutory definitions, and it lists several: a facility for making a financial investment, an interest in a managed investment scheme, a security such as a share or a debenture, a derivative, or a non-cash payment facility. For a token tied to a building, the two most likely are the scheme interest, as in Example 9, and the share. On shares, ASIC looks at whether the token carries an ownership interest in a company, voting rights or participation in profits, and observes that a share is a collection of rights. Recording it as a token does not change what it is.
Obligations follow from the classification. An entity that provides financial services needs an Australian financial services licence with the right authorisations. An entity operating a managed investment scheme for retail investors needs a licence authorising it to act as responsible entity. Offers of scheme interests come with product disclosure statements, and offers of securities with a prospectus that contains the information consumers reasonably require. Custody is covered too: ASIC says a person who controls the private keys for an address on a public blockchain is likely to be providing a custodial or depository service.
For a Queensland property professional, the practical reading is that a client's question about a "tokenised" building is two questions. One is a land question, answered by a title search: who is the registered owner, and what else is registered against the lot? The other is a financial product question, answered by the issuer's disclosure documents and licence, and it belongs to financial advisers and lawyers who work under the Commonwealth regime.
## What a token does not change about the land
Nothing in the arrangements described above alters the way Queensland decides who owns a lot.
The indefeasible title remains the current particulars in the freehold land register, as section 38 of the Land Title Act provides. Under section 31, a registered instrument becomes part of the register on registration. The practice manual's summary of section 62 is that the person or corporation registered as owner has title, protected by indefeasibility. A token changing hands is not an instrument lodged with the Registrar, and it adds no particulars to the register. After any number of token transfers, the registered owner of the lot is whoever it was before.
The consequences run in both directions. A buyer of the building deals with the registered owner, the vehicle, and a transfer signed for the vehicle and registered by the Registrar moves the title, whatever the token ledger says. Whether the vehicle was entitled to sell, and what the token holders can then claim, are questions under the vehicle's own documents and the financial services law, not entries in the land register. Equally, a token holder cannot go to the registry and be recorded as owner of a fraction of the lot by producing a token. To be on the title as a tenant in common takes a transfer in the approved form, with its duty notation and its property information form, registered in the ordinary way.
> A token can record a claim on whatever owns a Queensland lot. Only the freehold land register records who owns the lot.
## Reading the word "ownership" with care
Much of the confusion around tokenised property comes from one word. In marketing language, a person who holds tokens "owns part of" a building. In the language of the Land Title Act, the owner of a lot is the registered owner, and in the usual structure that is the vehicle alone.
Both statements can be made in good faith about the same arrangement, because they use the word differently. The first describes an economic position: a share of rent and of any gain. The second describes a legal position recorded by the State. ASIC's approach, looking through the label to the rights actually attached, is a way of translating the first statement into legal terms. The translation in its real estate example is "an interest in a managed investment scheme".
For readers who work with Queensland titles every day, the distinction can be checked. A title search shows the registered owner and the tenancy, with fractions for tenants in common. If an arrangement is described as giving investors a share of a Queensland property and the title shows a single company or trustee, the investors' rights lie in the documents that sit behind that name. What those documents say, and whether the issuer holds the licences that ASIC's guidance describes, is where the substance of the arrangement is found.
None of this makes one way of holding property better or worse than another. Co-ownership on title, fund units, listed trusts and token-based arrangements distribute control, visibility, cost and risk differently, and each is governed by its own body of rules. What Queensland land law contributes is a fixed point: for any lot, at any moment, the register gives one answer to the question of who owns it.