A Queensland auctioneer must not disclose the identity of a registered bidder to anyone other than an inspector or a court. The one opening is the seller, or the seller’s agent, and only where telling them is necessary so they can negotiate with that bidder once the property is passed in, or otherwise to help the sale along.
General informationThis page describes section 25 of the Property Occupations Regulation 2014 and how the Queensland Government explains it, not what applies at any one auction. Queensland’s Office of Fair Trading is the state’s consumer protection regulator; a solicitor can advise on a particular sale.
The rule in the Regulation’s words
“An auctioneer must not disclose the identity of a bidder registered by the auctioneer under section 23 to anyone other than an inspector or a court.”
Property Occupations Regulation 2014, section 25(1)
The rule covers the people in the register described in registering to bid: everyone who gave a name, an address and evidence of identity, and was given a unique bidder identifier. The auctioneer holds those details, and section 25 says where they may go.
Section 25(2) then makes one exception: a bidder’s identity may be passed by the auctioneer to the seller, or to the seller’s agent, where that is necessary for either of two purposes:
- to let the seller or the seller’s agent negotiate with that bidder once the property has been passed in; or
- otherwise to facilitate the sale of the property.
The section’s words are “if the disclosure is necessary to”: the exception applies only where one of those two purposes needs it.
Who may be told, person by person
| Who | May the auctioneer tell them? | Where |
|---|---|---|
| An inspector | Yes. | s 25(1) |
| A court | Yes. | s 25(1) |
| The seller, or the seller’s agent | Only if it is necessary to negotiate with the bidder after a pass-in, or otherwise to facilitate the sale. | s 25(2) |
| Anyone else, including other bidders and onlookers | No: the general rule is that the auctioneer must not disclose a registered bidder’s identity to anyone other than an inspector or a court. | s 25(1) |
How the government explains it to auctioneers
The Queensland Government’s page on auctioning a property, written for people in the property industry, puts the rule in time order. During the auction, an auctioneer must not identify any bidder; after it, an auctioneer may do so only to help finalise the sale. In any other circumstances, the page says, a bidder may be identified only to an inspector or a court.
That plain version and the Regulation point the same way. Where they read differently at the edges, the Regulation is the law, and the page is the government’s summary of it for the industry.
The one bid that must be named aloud
There is one bid whose source the auctioneer has to say out loud. Under section 24 of the Regulation, when the seller or the seller’s agent makes a bid for the property while it is up for sale, the auctioneer has to tell the other bidders that the bid came from the seller or the seller’s agent. The industry page puts it briefly: auctioneers “must disclose whenever a bid is a vendor bid.”
The rule has a ceiling. If the seller sets a reserve price, the auctioneer must not accept a bid from the seller or the seller’s agent that is higher than the reserve.
From the floor, that announcement tells the room something. The Queensland Government’s page for sellers says what: a reserve price exists, and the bidding has not yet reached it. The same page says that once bidding reaches the reserve, any more vendor bids become false bids, and false bids are illegal.
So the two rules sit side by side. A registered bidder’s name stays behind the blades; a seller’s bid is announced as the seller’s.
After the auction, the register stays
The details do not leave the auctioneer’s hands when the hammer falls. The register must be kept for at least 5 years, counted from the day of its last entry. Those are the same details section 25 protects: its rule is written about the identity of a bidder registered under section 23. The government’s industry page is the one that speaks of time, allowing identification after the auction only to help finalise the sale.
If something seems wrong
The Office of Fair Trading is Queensland’s consumer protection regulator, and it says complaints to it must be in writing. Its page on how it helps in disputes sets out the steps. A solicitor can advise on what a particular disclosure means for a particular purchase.