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Bidding for someone else at auction, a guide by Dotto

Australian Capital Territory · The buyer is named in the record before bidding

Bidding for someone else in the ACT

In the Australian Capital Territory, the person a bidder acts for is called the principal, and the principal’s name and address go into the seller’s agent’s bidders record before the auction.

3 two-flag signals drawn in a row, each a pair of square flags split diagonally in red and white, held out on staffs from a dark hub.
The ACT: three signals, one message. A principal’s name reaches the bidders record only on a written authority the agent has sighted.

At a public auction of residential property in the ACT, a person may bid for someone else, whom the law calls the principal. The seller’s agent records that the person is bidding for someone else, with the principal’s name and address, and commits an offence by entering a principal without having sighted a written authority, stating the principal’s name and address, for that person to bid.

General informationA summary of the Civil Law (Sale of Residential Property) Act 2003, as republished on 1 November 2025, not legal advice about any purchase. A solicitor or conveyancer can advise on a particular purchase.

Access Canberra licenses real estate agents under the Agents Act 2003.

Which auctions these rules reach

Part 4 of the Act deals with public auctions of residential property, and a public auction is one that has been publicly advertised. Residential property means vacant land where the territory lease permits one or more homes to be built, land with one or two homes on it or under construction, or a unit. The definition leaves out land or a unit over 3 hectares; land whose lease purpose clause allows any use beyond residential or rural residential, other than an incidental one; a retirement village and some interests in one; and a developer’s holding lease.

The “agent” the Act puts these duties on is a person licensed as a real estate agent under the Agents Act 2003, or registered under it as an assistant real estate agent.

The bidders record

Section 25

The seller’s agent has to draw up the bidders record, listing everyone entitled to bid, before the property is put up at a public auction. For each of them, it holds:

  • the person’s name and address
  • the prescribed details of the proof of identity the agent sighted for them
  • whether they are bidding for themselves or for someone else
  • if for someone else, the principal’s name and address
  • the bidder number the agent gives them for that auction.

The agent keeps the record for three years.

The written authority

Section 26

Section 26 works on the agent rather than on the bidder, and it sets two gates. For a person bidding for themselves, the agent must have sighted their proof of identity before entering their name and address. For a principal, the agent must first have sighted a written authority, giving the principal’s name and address, under which the bidder may bid on the principal’s behalf.

Each gate carries a maximum penalty of 50 penalty units, and both are strict liability offences. The agent also must not enter any details they know, or are reckless about whether, are false, unless they are not false in a material particular.

Illustrative example, not a real saleA buyer asks a friend to bid at a Saturday auction of a townhouse. The friend brings their own proof of identity and a signed note authorising them to bid, which gives the buyer’s full name and home address. The agent sights both, records the friend as bidding for someone else, enters the buyer as principal, and gives the friend a bidder number. A note that left out the buyer’s address would not be the authority section 26 describes.

On the day

Sections 28 and 29

  1. The number is shown, and said aloud

    The auctioneer commits an offence by taking a bid from someone who is not displaying their bidder number, or by taking a bid without audibly acknowledging that number. An auctioneer who refuses a bid for that reason is not liable to anyone for refusing it.

  2. A wrongly taken bid still stands

    A bid taken in breach of section 28 is still valid, and so is its taking or acceptance.

  3. Bidding for the buyer, never for the seller

    Nobody may make a bid for the seller at the auction, apart from the one seller bid section 30 allows the auctioneer. A bid can count as made for the seller even if the seller never asked for it or knew of it, and evidence that a bidder meant to benefit the seller is evidence that the bid was the seller’s. It makes no difference that the bidder is outside the ACT, or outside Australia.

What happens to the principal’s name

Sections 25(4) and 27

The agent who makes a bidders record commits an offence by disclosing what is in it, or by using it for any purpose not related to the auction. The ban on disclosing does not reach a disclosure that the Act or another Territory law authorises or requires. The Act also lets regulations deal with bidders records, including by entitling the seller to inspect the record for the sale.

Being named in the record matters after the auction too. If the property is passed in and a contract is made that same day, there is no cooling-off period where the buyer was in the record as a bidder, or as the principal someone was bidding for.