Selling to a deadline: fixed-date sales and tenders

Victoria: the fixed-date sale

Consumer Affairs Victoria defines a fixed-date sale as any sale method where the seller sets a date and time by which potential buyers must put in their offers. Its guidance for agents goes further. An agent who invites offers by a certain date and time could be running a fixed-date sale, and a “boardroom auction”, where interested parties gather to bid before a public auction, fits the definition.

The label matters because of new laws that started on 1 October 2026. Their requirements cover any auction or fixed-date sale held from 16 October 2026 onwards. For those sales:

• The agent must ask the seller in writing for a reserve price, then publish it at least seven days before the sale date.
• The reserve must be a single dollar amount, with no words or symbols such as “from”, “over”, “+” or “starting at”.
• Online advertising must be updated within one business day of the agent receiving the reserve price.
• If the reserve hasn’t been published for the full seven days, the sale cannot go ahead.
• If the seller changes the published reserve, up or down, the seven days start again.
• The Property Price Statement, which replaced the Statement of Information, carries the seller’s reserve once it is received.

Some sales sit outside the reserve rule. Pre-auction offers are treated as a private sale and can happen without the seven-day requirement, and the rules don’t apply to private sales without a fixed date, commercial sales, or sales run by an owner without an estate agent.

A worked example: counting the seven days

The dates below are worked from Consumer Affairs Victoria’s own examples; the change of reserve in the last two lines is an illustration added here, counted by the rule CAV states.

The ACT: buying by tender

Access Canberra’s guide for buyers and sellers describes tender as a method “used from time to time”. Every interested buyer puts their offer in writing, usually the most they are willing to pay. The offers go to the seller, who can pick the highest price but isn’t obliged to accept any of them. A deposit may be required with the offer.

A residential property bought by tender in the ACT carries no cooling-off period, Access Canberra’s Reality Check guide says.

The same guide lists sales by auction or tender among the cases where the ACT’s five-clear-working-day cooling-off period doesn’t apply.

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