National Licensing for Property Occupations Consultation Regulation Impact Statement

2Current regulatory approach

The property occupations are currently licensed under state and territory legislation and administered by jurisdictional regulators. All jurisdictions have some form of licensing, though the approach to licensing varies across jurisdictions. For example, all jurisdictions license real estate agents and auctioneers (of real property). Jurisdictions also license business agents, strata managing agents and stock and property managing occupations, albeit in different ways. Auctioneers (of livestock or goods and chattels) are licensed in most jurisdictions.

Victoria and South Australia take a broad licensing approach and issue a single licence to cover sale, auction, lease and management of residential, commercial and rural property and businesses. Other jurisdictions follow a segmented approach, with one or more licence categories in addition to a real estate agent’s licence. For example:

New South Wales, Western Australia, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory license business agents separately.

New South Wales and Victoria license or register strata (or body corporate) managing agents separately, albeit with different eligibility requirements. Victoria requires specified qualifications and requires employers to place the names of employees on a public register. Tasmania has a negative licensing arrangement in which employees are required to have specified qualifications and employers are required maintain a list of employees. Strata managing forms part of the work of a real estate agent in the Australian Capital Territory and a real estate agent or restricted real estate’s agent’s licence in the Northern Territory (body corporate licensees).

All jurisdictions license the auctioning of real property. In some cases this forms part of the scope of work for a real estate licence or is an endorsement on a real estate agent’s licence if competency is demonstrated (New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory). In other cases a separate auctioneer’s licence is required (Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory).

All jurisdictions take the approach of licensing or registering employees (agent’s representatives) who work under supervision, except Tasmania, which has a negative licensing arrangement in which employees are required to have specified qualifications and employers are required to maintain a list of employees.

Table 2.1 outlines the current property licensing arrangements across Australia.

Table 2.1: Current property licensing arrangements across Australia

Licence category	NSW	Vic	Qld	WA	SA	Tas	ACT	NT
Real estate agent								
Business agent		a	a		a	a		
Strata managing agent		d				e	a	a
Stock & station agent			a
Pastoral house			
Resident letting agent			
Affordable housing			
Property developer			
Buyer’s agent		a	a	a	a		a	a
Property managing agent			a	a	a			a
Auctioneer (real property)	b	a			b		a	
Auctioneer (stock)	b						a	
Trainee auctioneer registration			
Agent’s representative		c						
Business agent’s representative		a and c	a		a			
Strata managing agent’s representative		d						

Note: shading denotes regulated work.

a Included in the scope of a real estate agent and/or agent’s representative.

b Real estate or stock and station agent licence prerequisite.

c Regulation through an employer-delegated scheme.

d ‘Light touch’ registration scheme with limited eligibility criteria.

e Tasmania has a negative licensing scheme.

Source: Provided by the jurisdictional licensing authorities.