At a Queensland auction, the auctioneer may accept a bid only from a registered bidder. To be registered, a person gives the auctioneer a name and address and produces satisfactory evidence of identity (and a person who will bid on another person’s telephone instructions also gives that person’s name and address); the auctioneer then assigns the bidder a unique bidder identifier and records all three in a register.
General informationThis page describes Queensland’s published rules, not what applies to any one purchase. The rules are in the Property Occupations Regulation 2014, section 23; Queensland’s Office of Fair Trading is the state’s consumer protection regulator, and a solicitor can advise on a particular sale.
The rule, from the auctioneer’s side
The duty sits with the auctioneer. Section 23 of the Regulation says the auctioneer must keep a register of each bidder registered to bid, one register for each auction conducted at the same place on the same day, and calls each person in it a registered bidder.
Two things follow for anyone in the crowd. The auctioneer must tell people considering bidding that only bids from registered bidders will be accepted, and must make sure a bidder is registered before accepting that bidder’s bid. The Queensland Government’s page for the property industry puts the same duty in one line: an auctioneer “must keep a register of all bidders at an auction.”
So registering is the step that turns a raised hand into a bid the auctioneer may take.
At the registration table, in order
The Regulation sets out what the auctioneer may ask for and what the auctioneer must then do. Read in sequence, it runs like this.
Name and address
The person gives the auctioneer their name and address. This is the first of the conditions the Regulation lists that every bidder must meet before the auctioneer can enter them as a bidder. A person who will bid on instructions another person gives by telephone must also give the auctioneer that other person’s name and address.
Evidence of identity
The person produces satisfactory evidence of their identity to the auctioneer. The test the section sets is that the evidence is satisfactory and that the auctioneer is satisfied of the person’s identity, so what a particular auctioneer accepts is a question for that auctioneer before the day.
The identifier
If the auctioneer is satisfied of the person’s identity, the auctioneer must assign the person a unique bidder identifier.
The entry
The auctioneer must then record the person’s name and address, and the identifier assigned, in the register.
The order matters in one place: the identifier comes only once the auctioneer is satisfied of who the person is. A person whose identity has not been shown to the auctioneer’s satisfaction is not someone the auctioneer may register.
What the register holds, and for how long
| Item | What the Regulation says | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Which auction | One register for each auction the auctioneer conducts at the same place on the same day. | s 23(1) |
| Name and address | Given by the person, and recorded once the auctioneer is satisfied of the person’s identity. | s 23(4)(a), 23(5)(b) |
| Unique bidder identifier | Assigned by the auctioneer to the person, and recorded beside the name and address. | s 23(5) |
| How long it is kept | For at least 5 years, counted from the day of its last entry. | s 23(7) |
What happens to those entries afterwards, and who may be told whose they are, is the subject of who may learn a bidder’s identity.
Registered once, used again
A bidder does not always start from nothing. If the same auctioneer has registered the bidder before for the sale of property, the Regulation says that earlier registration may be applied to one or more later auctions the auctioneer conducts. The word is “may”: the Regulation allows the earlier registration to carry over, and leaves it there.
Who is running the auction
An auction is a public sale held at a specific date, time and place, and the auctioneer who runs it is licensed. Under the Property Occupations Act 2014 an auctioneer is a person who holds an auctioneer licence, and the Queensland Government says a valid licence or registration is needed to work as one.
The same government page tells auctioneers to display their name at the site of an auction, and that conducting an auction on a property needs a valid appointment to act. Its page for sellers adds that the auctioneer will need to disclose the seller’s conditions of sale.
Registration time and the seller’s papers
Registration also sets a clock under a different law. Under the Property Law Act 2023, if the buyer of a lot sold by auction was registered as a bidder before the auction started, the seller is taken to have given that buyer the disclosure documents in time only if the seller gave them before the start. A buyer who registers after the start is covered by a different rule. Both are set out in the seller’s disclosure documents before bidding starts.
If someone acts for you for reward
Section 97 of the Property Occupations Act bars anyone from doing, for reward and as someone else’s agent, “an activity that may be done under the authority of a property agent licence”, unless they hold a licence that covers it or another law permits it. The same section counts advertising a willingness to do that work, or holding out in any way as ready to do it, as acting as a property agent.
The Act also bars a property agent from acting for more than one party to the same transaction, with a maximum penalty of 200 penalty units, and that if one does, an appointment to act for a party is ineffective from the time it is made. The Queensland Government’s licensing page says a valid licence or registration is needed to work as a real estate agent.