Who hires the auctioneer in Queensland, and how the fee is agreed

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Kooky

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

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A seller who chooses auction usually meets the auctioneer late. The listing agent has been through the house, the photographs are booked, the campaign has a date, and somewhere in the paperwork a second professional has been lined up to stand on the lawn on the day and take the bids. Many sellers could not say afterwards who engaged that person, on what document, or which line of the final account carried the fee.

Queensland law is more precise about it than the usual experience suggests. An auctioneer is a licensed occupation in its own right, and nobody may perform an auctioneer's services for a seller without a written appointment in an approved form. This guide follows that engagement from the first signature to the invoice: who appoints the auctioneer, what the appointment has to record, the difference between an agency's own auctioneer and one brought in from outside, how the fee is described in published sources, and the questions that decide who pays when the property does not sell under the hammer. It does not go back over agent commission, which this magazine covers in its commissions pages. The subject here is the auctioneer's own fee, and the general rules around it. How they apply to one sale depends on the documents signed for that sale.

Two licences behind one sale

The starting point is that the person calling the bids and the person who listed the property may hold different licences. An article published by the REIQ on 2 March 2026, written by lawyers at Carter Newell, sets out the structure. Under the Property Occupations Act 2014, it explains, an auctioneer is specifically a person who holds an auctioneer licence, and that licence is separate and distinct from a real estate agent licence. Both kinds of licensee fall within the Act's wider category of property agent.

The same article describes what the auctioneer licence is for: it authorises its holder to sell property by auction, as an agent for others and for reward. The words "as an agent" matter. An auctioneer on a front lawn is not a neutral umpire hired by the crowd. The auctioneer acts for the seller, and the rules that follow all flow from that relationship.

This is also why the question of who engages the auctioneer is not a formality. An agent for someone needs that person's authority, and in Queensland property the authority has to be on paper.

No appointment, no auction services

The Carter Newell article for the REIQ puts the rule in one sentence: before any auctioneer services can be performed, a property agent must be properly appointed in writing. The document used for a home is the Form 6 appointment. For a commercial property it is the Form 6A.

Both are government forms. The Queensland Government's publications portal lists them under its auction transaction forms as the residential auctioneer appointment or reappointment (Form 6) and the commercial auctioneer appointment or reappointment (Form 6A). The Realworks forms library, on its page of documents for auctioneers, describes the Form 6 as the prescribed appointment form required before an auctioneer can provide any services.

The order of events is the point. The appointment comes first, and the work comes second. Advertising an auction, taking instructions on a reserve, registering bidders and calling the bids are all services performed for a client, and the form is what makes the seller that client. A seller who has been told an auctioneer is "booked" is entitled to ask which signed appointment that booking rests on.

What the appointment puts in writing

The Queensland Government's page for home sellers on appointing a real estate sales agent, last updated on 19 July 2024, lists what the appointment form sets out. There are four items: how much commission the agent will charge for their services, any other costs the agent could incur on the seller's behalf, with advertising given as the example, when the seller's payments to the agent are due, and what services the agent will provide and how.

Each of the four has an auction reading. The services include the auction itself. The Carter Newell article notes that the Act requires the day set for a sale by auction to be stated in writing in the Form 6. The date of the auction is therefore not an arrangement made by phone a fortnight into the campaign. It is a term of the appointment.

The second item, other costs, is where an auctioneer's fee most often belongs when the seller's agreement is with the agency and not with the auctioneer. A separate REIQ article, written by the institute's legal counsel and published on 1 July 2025, shows where such costs go on the form. Dealing with the cost of preparing a seller disclosure statement, it says that expenses the agent incurs and fees the agent charges the client must be disclosed in Part 8 of the Form 6 or Form 6A, and it gives section 104(1)(c) of the Property Occupations Act 2014 as the legal basis. It adds that where the agent engages a third party to help, that party's fees must be disclosed as well. The article is about disclosure statements and never mentions auctioneers. What it shows is the part of the form in which a cost passed on to the seller is written down.

The third item, when payments are due, is the one that answers most of the awkward questions later in this guide.

Three routes to the same rostrum

There is more than one way for an auctioneer to end up at a sale, and the paperwork differs with the route. The Carter Newell article for the REIQ describes the first two directly. Where an agency is appointed to sell a property by auction, it says, that appointment authorises the agency's employed auctioneers to conduct the auction. If an external auctioneer is engaged, the auctioneer's engagement must be formalised. The third route, a seller appointing an auctioneer personally, follows from the rule that an auctioneer is a property agent who can be appointed on a Form 6 in the same way as an agency.

The table hides one practical difference. On the first route there is a single appointment and a single business answerable to the seller. On the second there are two businesses involved in one auction, and the seller needs to know how the second has been brought into the first one's authority. On the third the seller has two direct relationships, one with whoever is marketing the property and one with the auctioneer, each with its own form and its own fee terms.

In-house or contract: what changes

Some agencies employ their own auctioneers. Others bring in an independent auctioneer for the day. The REIQ article recognises both arrangements, and neither is better in itself. They differ in what the seller should look for on paper.

With an employed auctioneer, the REIQ article is clear that the agency's appointment is enough. The auctioneer works under the agency's authority, and anything the seller pays for the auction is a matter between seller and agency. The seller's task is to see how the agency's form deals with the auction: whether the auctioneer's work is included in the agency's remuneration or charged as a separate item, and where on the form that is written.

With an outside auctioneer, the article's phrase is that the engagement must be formalised. It does not prescribe in the passage read for this guide which document does that in every case, and a seller should not assume. The plain question is which signed form names the auctioneer who will conduct the sale, and whether the seller is a party to it. An independent auctioneer still owes the duties of an auctioneer to the seller, described near the end of this guide, whoever arranged the booking.

A published selling-cost guide for Queensland from the comparison service OpenAgent makes a related point about choice. A seller can hire their own auctioneer, it says, although it describes having the agent organise one as generally the more cost-effective course. The statement is a commercial site's view and not a rule. It does confirm that the seller is not obliged to accept whoever the agency normally uses.

How the fee is described

Auctioneers' fees are not set by Queensland law. None of the government pages read for this guide gives a scale, a cap or a recommended amount, and the appointment form exists precisely so that the figure is agreed and written down case by case.

What published sources say about the fee is limited, and this guide repeats only what they state. OpenAgent's Queensland guide describes the auctioneer's fee as separate from the real estate agent's commission. It treats the fee as one of the reasons an auction campaign generally costs a seller more than a private treaty sale, alongside heavier advertising. That is the common pattern: commission is a share of the price paid on a sale, while the auctioneer's fee is a charge for a service performed on a day.

That difference in kind is the reason the two should be read separately on a quote. A commission rate tells a seller nothing about the auction-day cost. An agency's fee proposal may fold the auctioneer into a marketing package, show the fee as its own line, or leave it to a separate appointment with the auctioneer. Nothing in the rules stops a fee from being a fixed amount for the auction, or from carrying a component that depends on the result. The sources read for this guide do not say how common each structure is in Queensland and give no dated figure reliable enough to print here, so none is given. The reliable figure for any one sale is the one written on that sale's form.

Where the fee sits on the form

Because the fee can travel by three routes, it can appear in three places.

If the agency employs the auctioneer and makes no separate charge, the cost of the auction is inside the agency's remuneration and there may be no auctioneer line at all. If the agency charges for the auctioneer, whether employed or external, the charge is a cost passed to the seller, and the REIQ's legal counsel article points to Part 8 of the Form 6 as the place where expenses and fees charged to the client are disclosed. If the seller has appointed the auctioneer directly, the fee is the remuneration under the auctioneer's own Form 6.

Reading the form this way also shows what is not there. A marketing schedule that lists photography, signboard and online listings but is silent on the auctioneer invites a simple question: is the auctioneer included in something else, or still to be charged?

Passed in, sold before, sold after

The hardest questions about an auctioneer's fee arise when the auction does not end with a sale under the hammer. A property can be passed in. It can be sold to a keen buyer before auction day, so that the auction never takes place. It can be withdrawn. It can sell by negotiation in the days after.

No Queensland Government page read for this guide lays down who bears the auctioneer's fee in those cases, and it would be wrong to present a general rule. The answer is in the appointment, under the third of the four items the government lists: when the seller's payments are due. A fee expressed as payable for conducting the auction points one way. A fee expressed as payable only on a sale points another. A fee payable once the auctioneer is booked, whether or not the auction goes ahead, points a third.

Two features of the legal framework make these questions answerable. The first is that the auction day is fixed in writing in the Form 6, as the Carter Newell article explains, so there is a definite date against which a cancellation or an early sale can be measured. The second is that the form records when payments fall due. A seller who reads those two entries together before signing knows what an early offer will cost in auction fees, and can weigh it when the offer arrives.

A sale after a passed-in auction raises a commission question as well as a fee question, and that side is covered in this magazine's guides on passed-in auctions and on when commission is earned. For the auctioneer's fee the point is narrower. The auctioneer's service, calling the auction, has been performed whether or not the hammer fell. Whether payment follows from that is a matter of what was agreed.

Term, auction date and ending the appointment

An auction campaign runs inside the life of an appointment, and the appointment has limits. The Queensland Government's page for sellers describes three kinds. In an open listing the seller may list with several agents at once and pays commission only to the one who sells. In a sole agency the seller pays the agent a commission once the property is sold, unless the seller sells it personally. In an exclusive agency the seller pays the agent when the property is sold, regardless of who sells it.

The same page gives the time limits. A sole or exclusive agency can run for a maximum of 90 days. If the agreed term is longer than 60 days, either party can end the appointment by giving at least 30 days' written notice. An open listing can be cancelled at any time by either party in writing.

These limits matter for auctions because of sequence. The appointment is signed, the campaign runs for some weeks, the auction is held on the date written in the form, and if the property is passed in there is a period of negotiation afterwards. All of that has to fit inside the term, or be covered by a reappointment, which is why both forms carry the words "appointment or reappointment" in their titles. A seller planning a long campaign, or a second auction after a first that failed, should check which appointment will be in force on the new date and whether the auctioneer's fee is charged again.

GST on the auctioneer's fee

The Queensland sources used for this guide deal with licensing and conduct, and none of them addresses goods and services tax. GST is a federal tax, and how it applies to a particular auctioneer's fee depends on that auctioneer's or agency's own tax position, which this guide does not attempt to state.

What a seller can do without any tax knowledge is make sure the quoted figure is unambiguous. Three questions cover it: whether the amount written on the appointment includes GST, whether the same is true of every expense listed beside it, and whether the tax invoice will come from the agency or from the auctioneer. Where the seller's only appointment is with the agency, the agency is the business the seller has agreed to pay. Where the seller has appointed the auctioneer directly, it is the auctioneer. With an external auctioneer brought in by the agency the answer is not obvious from outside, which is one more reason to know how an external auctioneer has been engaged. This magazine's guide to GST on an agent's commission explains how the tax appears on the settlement paperwork.

What the seller is paying for

A fee is easier to judge when the service is understood, and an auctioneer's service in Queensland is a good deal more than the call itself. The duties are set by law and begin well before auction day.

The Property Occupations Regulation 2014 requires an auctioneer appointed to sell a property to take reasonable steps, before auctioning it, to find out or verify who owns it and how it is described. A further provision requires reasonable steps to find out or verify the facts material to the sale that a prudent auctioneer would have checked, so as to avoid error, omission, exaggeration or misrepresentation. That duty applies before the auction and continues afterwards as the occasion arises. The Regulation's conduct rules also require a property agent to act in accordance with the client's instructions, including written instructions on price.

The Office of Fair Trading's page on auctioning a property, updated on 1 July 2026, adds the duties that surround the reserve. The auctioneer must ask the seller whether they wish to set one. If the seller declines, the auctioneer must give written notice that the seller will be obliged to accept the highest bid, and the page puts the penalty for failing to do so at $34,540. Before recommending a reserve the auctioneer must provide a comparative market analysis of at least three similar properties sold within 5 kilometres in the previous six months, or a written explanation of how the value was assessed.

On the day itself the list continues. According to the Office of Fair Trading, the auctioneer must keep a register of bidders, check their identification, issue each with an identifying marker and announce that only registered bidders may bid. The auctioneer's name must be displayed conspicuously. Seller bids are allowed only up to the reserve and must be disclosed. Bidders' identities must be protected. The Regulation requires the bidders register to be kept for at least five years, and requires an auction contract book at the auctioneer's registered office recording the property, the owner, the reserve, any special conditions and the date, time and place of the auction, completed afterwards with the buyer and price or, if the property did not sell, the highest bid.

Set beside that list, the fee is payment for a licensed agent's legal responsibility for the auction as much as for a performance. It is also why the appointment matters to the auctioneer as much as to the seller: the written form is the authority on which every one of those duties is carried out.

The fee for an auction is whatever the appointment says it is. The useful habit is to read where it is written before the campaign begins, not after the hammer.

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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