Auctions and price guides in the ACT

The research behind this page found no ACT-specific rule on what a price guide may say. Agents must comply with the Agents Act 2003, the Agents Regulation 2003 and the Civil Law (Sale of Residential Property) Act 2003. Access Canberra administers them. The price-representation provisions beyond sections 88 and 89 are not covered here. A Canberra price guide reads as the vendor's and the agent's marketing position. The general law against misleading conduct is the guardrail. The auction-day rules are firmer. The agent keeps a bidders record, the auctioneer may not acknowledge a bid that was not made, and there is no cooling-off period.

What a price guide may say

The Agents Act 2003 makes a false representation to a seller or buyer an offence (section 88) and requires an agent to be able to substantiate a selling price estimate (section 89); the agency agreement must state the agent's estimate of the selling price or range. There is no range-width rule and no Statement of Information equivalent, and the penalty amounts were not read. One disclosure the ACT does require in every sale advertisement is the energy efficiency rating. With no ACT-specific rule on range width, a price guide here is read as it commonly is elsewhere: as the vendor's and the agent's marketing position, not as evidence of what buyers have paid. The guide is the floor the vendor would like the conversation to start at. Access Canberra publishes Reality Check, a consumer guide to buying and selling real estate in the ACT.

Underquoting

The ACT has no offence called underquoting; what it has is the Agents Act 2003, which makes a false representation to a seller or buyer an offence and requires an agent to substantiate a selling price estimate. The penalties were not read. The enforcement structure is confirmed. Access Canberra licenses real estate agents under the Agents Act 2003. Its Agents Practice Manual names the Agents Regulation 2003 and the Civil Law (Sale of Residential Property) Act as rules agents must comply with. Access Canberra also runs a compliance program that inspects agencies over their auction practice. A complaint about a price guide goes to Access Canberra; the complaints page itself was not opened.

Reforms in train

None found. No announced or partly commenced reform to price guides, underquoting or auctions was found on the official pages checked as at 6 September 2026. The only announced changes found were to duty, and they are covered on the stamp duty page.

On auction day

Bidder registration. Before residential property is offered at public auction, the seller's agent must make a bidders record of the people bidding. It holds proof of identity and whether the person is bidding for themselves or for someone else. It also records the name and address of any principal, and the bidder number the agent gives them. Registering is what puts a buyer in the record, and the record is what the cooling-off exclusion turns on.

Dummy bids. The auctioneer must not acknowledge a bid at a public auction of residential property if no bid was made.

Vendor bids. The seller may bid through the auctioneer, and the auctioneer must identify each such vendor bid as a seller bid when it is made. Anyone publishing the result must say when a pass-in figure was a seller bid. How many seller bids are allowed was not read.

Buyer's agents. Under the Agents Regulation 2003, an agent bidding for a buyer must not continue past the maximum or agreed price. Going further needs the express consent of the buyer or someone the buyer has authorised.

The reserve and passing in. The reserve is the vendor's number. At a Suburban Land Agency auction of government land the reserve is undisclosed and the block goes to the highest bidder above it. If bidding falls short, the highest registered bidder gets a period to negotiate exclusively with the ACT Government. How a private auction handles a property that is passed in was not confirmed. What is confirmed is the consequence: a buyer in the bidders record who signs on the day after a pass-in has no cooling-off.

No cooling-off, deposit on the day. A sale by auction has no cooling-off period, and nor does that same-day contract after a pass-in. At an SLA auction the successful bidder signs the contract and pays a deposit at the time of the bid. The private-auction deposit convention was not confirmed.

Reading a guide against the sales

A guide, wherever it sits, is not evidence of what buyers have paid. The evidence is recorded comparable sales: similar type, similar block and floor area, similar condition, sold as recently as the data allows. A fair-value range built from those sales shows whether a guide sits under, within or above what buyers have recently paid for similar property. In Canberra the crown lease and the energy rating are part of what makes a sale comparable, because both travel with the property.