Auctions and price guides in Western Australia

Western Australia does not regulate the price guide. No statute says what a guide may state, sets a range width or requires a Statement of Information. A listing may carry a price, "offers over", "from" or nothing at all. What holds an agent to the guide is the general law on misleading conduct and the agents' Code of Conduct. At auction the rules are firm: the highest bid at or above the reserve wins, the contract is signed on the spot, and there is no cooling-off.

What a price guide may say

The only direct rule is in the agents' Code of Conduct. An agent must not advertise or offer real estate for sale at a price, or on other terms, other than as authorised by the client. The seller sets the number the agent may publish. Consumer Protection's advertising bulletin adds the Australian Consumer Law. It is unlawful for a business to make false or misleading representations, and conduct is misleading if it has the ability to induce error. Advertising details are expected to be concise, accurate and substantiable. The Code also requires agents to be honest in all dealings.

So a WA guide is the seller's authorised figure, published under a duty not to mislead. It is not required to match the agent's own estimate, to sit within a range, or to be given at all. The national guide to "offers over" puts WA among the states where the words are a negotiating position rather than a regulated statement.

Underquoting

There is no underquoting offence in Western Australia. On 19 August 2025 a member told the Legislative Council that in Victoria, where underquoting is illegal, a property must be advertised with a price, and that Western Australia has no such requirement. That is a member's statement rather than a Consumer Protection ruling, and it speaks to the price requirement; nothing in the sources checked shows an underquoting offence in WA. What exists instead is the false-or-misleading-representation law, enforced in the property context by Consumer Protection WA. Its 2015 bulletin on false and misleading information records a prosecution under the Fair Trading Act; the current maximum penalties are on Consumer Protection's false-or-misleading-representation page. A misleading guide is reported through Consumer Protection's real estate complaints process, after raising it with the agent.

Reforms in train

None found. The sources this page rests on show no 2025-26 WA reform to price guides or underquoting, announced or commenced. Read that as not confirmed rather than settled; Consumer Protection's page for agents is where a change would appear.

On auction day

Consumer Protection's guidance describes the mechanics. The property sells to the highest bidder if that bid meets the reserve, the seller's minimum; otherwise it is passed in. Whether bidders have to register was not confirmed from this environment; the Auction Sales Act 1973 and the auction page are the places to check.

The seller may bid, usually through the auctioneer, to reach the reserve. The seller or the agent may make a vendor bid up to the reserve. The intended number of vendor bids has to be shown in the conditions of sale, and Consumer Protection says vendor bids are usually declared at the start of the auction by the auctioneer. The consequence for a buyer: other bidders' behaviour is not evidence of value, because some of them may be bidding for the seller. A bid for the seller that is not declared falls outside that description, and the Code's honesty requirement is the rule that applies.

The winning bidder signs the contract immediately, pays a deposit of about 10 per cent, and settles usually 30 days later. There is no cooling-off and the purchase cannot be conditional on finance, so pre-approval has to be in hand. The buyer also has to nominate a settlement agent or lawyer on the spot, which means choosing one before the day.

Reading a guide against the sales

A guide with no rule behind it is read the same way as one with a rule: against the recorded sales. Find the recorded comparable sales for the property, similar type, land and condition, as recent as the evidence allows, and build the fair-value range from them. Then see where the guide sits: under the range, inside it, or above. The two national guides set out the method, how a fair-value range is built and what "offers over" means. In WA the prior question is what the guide is, since the agent is bound only to publish the seller's authorised figure honestly. Asking which sales support it is a fair question, and the answer, or its absence, is information. The report does this for one property: the range from the recorded sales and where the guide sits against it, with no rule of thumb.