I'm Joey Don. Our estate agent licence numbers are printed on the engagement letter before you sign it — but you should not take that on trust from us either. Here is the free government register, what it shows, and the two things a licence does not protect you from.
Joey Don · Last updated · 2026-08-31
A buyers agent in Victoria must hold an estate agent licence — Consumer Affairs Victoria states plainly that a buyer’s agent, also called a buyer’s advocate, is a licensed estate agent who acts for a buyer instead of a seller for a fee. You verify one for free on the Consumer Affairs Victoria public register of licensed estate agents, administered by the Business Licensing Authority. Search two things, not one: the trading company you would contract with, and the individual who would actually run your search, because those are frequently different entities and only the register shows the link between them. The register returns licence numbers with grant, surrender, cancellation and suspension dates; the directors and officers of a corporate licensee; the agents’ representatives it employs; branch offices and their managers; business names and ABNs; and any tribunal or court orders affecting the licensee. Acting as an estate agent without a licence is an offence under section 12 of the Estate Agents Act 1980 (Vic), carrying up to 12 months’ imprisonment or 500 penalty units for an individual and 1,000 penalty units for a corporation — $104,550 and $209,100 respectively at the 2026–27 penalty unit of $209.10. The licence does not tell you whose side the holder is on, because the same licence covers selling agents, and it does not underwrite advice: the Victorian Property Fund compensates loss from an agent misusing or misappropriating trust money, and Consumer Affairs Victoria states expressly that a claim cannot proceed simply because of unprofessional conduct, bad advice or a misrepresentation about a property.
The register fields, penalty amounts, conduct duties and compensation limits on this page were last verified against the primary sources on
Verifying a buyers agent in Victoria takes about five minutes and costs nothing, and almost nobody does it. This page sets out exactly what to search, what the register actually returns, what the licence obliges the holder to do — and, just as importantly, the two significant things a licence does not protect you from, because that is where most of the real risk in a buyers agency engagement actually sits.
Victoria has two legitimate ways to work in this industry. A full estate agent licence lets the holder operate independently, run an agency and hold a trust account. An agent’s representative works under the supervision of a licensed estate agent and cannot operate as a principal. Both are legitimate; the distinction matters because it tells you who is actually accountable for the engagement.
In practice the person you meet, the person who runs your search, and the entity on your engagement letter are often three different names. The Consumer Affairs Victoria register is built for exactly that: a corporate licensee’s record lists its directors and officers, its branch offices and the manager of each, and the agents’ representatives it employs. Search the company and search the individual, then confirm the register links them to each other.
PremiumRea operates under licensed estate agents and prints the licence numbers on the engagement letter before you sign. Check them against the register at the moment of signing rather than relying on a website footer or an email signature — the register reflects current status, including suspensions and cancellations, while a web page can quietly go stale.
Open the Consumer Affairs Victoria public register of licensed estate agents. Search the trading name or company name exactly as it appears on the engagement letter, not as it appears in the agency’s marketing — those differ more often than you would expect. Then search the surname of the individual who will run your search.
Read past the green tick. The register shows licence numbers with the dates a licence was granted, surrendered, cancelled or suspended, so a record can exist while the licence is no longer current; it also shows any tribunal or court orders affecting the licensee, which is the single most informative field on the page and the one nobody scrolls to. There is a toggle to show only current registrants — leave it off the first time so you see the history, then turn it on to confirm current status.
If the person or company does not appear, or appears with a cancelled or suspended licence, stop there. Consumer Affairs Victoria’s own guidance to buyers is to make sure a buyer’s agent is a licensed estate agent by checking this register before engaging them, and there is no reading of a missing record that works in your favour.
One optional cross-check: REBAA, the Real Estate Buyers Agents Association, publishes a free member directory filterable by state. Membership is voluntary and is emphatically not a licence — a firm can be excellent and not be a member — but it is a second independent list, and a firm that appears on neither is worth more questions.
The Estate Agents (Professional Conduct) Regulations 2018 (SR 49/2018) attach a set of duties to the licence. A licensee must act in the client’s best interests except where that would be unlawful, unreasonable, improper or against the client’s instructions, and must act fairly, honestly, in good faith and to the best of their knowledge and ability.
Three of the duties matter specifically to a buyer. A licensee must not put their interests in conflict with the client’s by acting for another person. A licensee must not accept commission from both a client and a consumer for the same transaction — which is the rule behind the question "are you paid by selling agents in any way?". And a licensee must disclose any personal or commercial relationship they have with a supplier they recommend, which covers the conveyancer, broker, building inspector or builder they point you toward.
On money, Consumer Affairs Victoria requires an agent to inform the client that commission and expenses are negotiable before the client signs an authority, and to complete a rebate statement stating whether they will receive any rebate or discount. Keeping a rebate is illegal — it must be paid to the client. If you take one clause to the engagement-letter conversation, take that one.
Section 55 of the Act adds a separate prohibition worth knowing even though it applies to the selling side: an agent must not purchase, or indirectly benefit from the purchase of, real estate they are engaged to sell, on penalty of two years’ imprisonment or 240 penalty units.
First, it does not tell you whose side the holder is on. The same estate agent licence covers selling agents and buyers agents; which side a licensee acts for is set contract by contract in the engagement letter. Verify the licence, then read the letter: it should state that the practitioner acts solely for you, and that they accept no payment from selling agents in respect of properties they show you. Neither check substitutes for the other.
Second, and much less well known: the compensation scheme behind agent licensing does not cover bad advice. The Victorian Property Fund compensates individuals and corporations who suffer loss because an estate agent, conveyancer or their representative has misused or misappropriated trust money or property — a deposit not passed to the vendor after settlement, rent not remitted to a landlord, rates or duty not paid after funds were received for the purpose. Consumer Affairs Victoria states expressly that a claim cannot proceed simply because of unprofessional conduct, bad advice, or misrepresentation about a property. A rejected claim can be appealed to VCAT within three months.
So the honest summary is that licensing protects money held in trust and gives the regulator a lever over conduct — a complaint about a licensed agent goes to Consumer Affairs Victoria through its estate agent complaint channel — but it does not underwrite the quality of the judgement you are paying for. That is what a written scope, a written fee schedule, and evidence you can actually check are for.
We previously published a paragraph on this page asserting that Victorian law requires every licensed estate agent to hold professional indemnity insurance, with a stated minimum. We could not substantiate it: Consumer Affairs Victoria publishes explicit professional indemnity requirements for conveyancers and for owners corporation managers, and no equivalent requirement for estate agents. Rather than leave an unsourced legal claim on a page about verification, we removed it. PremiumRea carries professional indemnity cover and will provide the certificate of currency on request; ask any agency you are considering for theirs, and read the limit and the exclusions rather than accepting that cover exists.
Trading as an estate agent without a licence is a criminal offence under section 12 of the Estate Agents Act 1980 (Vic): up to 12 months’ imprisonment or 500 penalty units for an individual, and 1,000 penalty units for a corporation. At the 2026–27 Victorian penalty unit of $209.10, those maxima are $104,550 and $209,100. Consumer Affairs Victoria publishes the current penalty schedule and updates the unit value at the start of each financial year.
For you as the buyer, the practical consequence is exposure rather than a fine. The Victorian Property Fund compensates loss caused by a licensed estate agent or conveyancer misusing trust money; an unlicensed operator is outside that scheme, so if money you hand over goes missing there is no statutory fund standing behind it. The regulator’s conduct levers — the complaint channel, licence conditions, suspension, cancellation — also only bite on someone who holds a licence to lose.
None of that requires a scam. The common version is mundane: a person who is genuinely knowledgeable, is not licensed, takes a fee to "help you buy", and is uninsured, unregulated and outside every protection above. Five minutes on the register is what separates the two cases.
PremiumRea operates under licensed estate agents and puts the licence numbers on the engagement letter before signature so you can check them at the moment it matters. Our fee schedule is published rather than quoted on a call: $15,800 + GST for a full acquisition regardless of purchase price, $12,500 + GST for a first-home-buyer engagement, $18,500 + GST for an SMSF acquisition, $2,500 + GST for auction bidding only.
On results, the check we invite is the same one this page asks you to run on anyone else. Our transaction record is published as open data — 345 settlements with offer dates from January 2023 to September 2025, released under CC-BY 4.0 with a permanent DOI (10.5281/zenodo.20095886) and downloadable as CSV or JSON. Across those 345 purchases the median gross yield after works was 5.77%, where gross yield is annual rent divided by purchase price plus works spend, before land tax, management fees, insurance, maintenance, vacancy and loan interest. Those are medians of settled transactions, not a projection for any individual property.
And the same caveat applies to us as to everyone: PremiumRea holds no Australian Financial Services Licence and no Australian Credit Licence. We do not advise on whether to establish an SMSF, whether to borrow inside one, or which lender or loan product to use. An estate agent licence does not authorise any of that, and a buyers agent who offers it is telling you something about how they read their own licence.
Search the Consumer Affairs Victoria public register of licensed estate agents. It is free and administered by the Business Licensing Authority. Search two things: the company you would contract with, exactly as named on the engagement letter, and the individual who will run your search. The register shows licence numbers with grant, surrender, cancellation and suspension dates, directors and officers of corporate licensees, agents’ representatives employed, branch offices and managers, business names and ABNs, and any tribunal or court orders affecting the licensee. If they do not appear, or the licence is not current, do not engage them.
Yes. Consumer Affairs Victoria defines a buyer’s agent — also called a buyer’s advocate — as a licensed estate agent who acts for a buyer instead of a seller for a fee, and advises buyers to confirm licensure on the public register before engaging one. There is no separate "buyers agent" licence class; it is the same estate agent licence.
Under section 12 of the Estate Agents Act 1980 (Vic), up to 12 months’ imprisonment or 500 penalty units for an individual, and 1,000 penalty units for a corporation. The Victorian penalty unit is $209.10 for the 2026–27 financial year, so those maxima are $104,550 and $209,100. Consumer Affairs Victoria publishes the current penalty schedule and the unit value is re-indexed at the start of each financial year.
A full estate agent licence allows the holder to operate independently, run an agency and hold a trust account. An agent’s representative must work under the supervision of a licensed estate agent and cannot operate as a principal. Both are legitimate under the Estate Agents Act 1980 (Vic). The register shows which representatives a licensee employs, so you can confirm the link between the person you deal with and the licensed entity that is accountable.
No. The same licence covers both sides; which side the holder acts for is set contract by contract in the engagement letter. Verify the licence first, then read the letter — it should state that the practitioner acts solely for you and accepts no payment from selling agents in respect of properties they show you. The Estate Agents (Professional Conduct) Regulations 2018 back that up by prohibiting a licensee from accepting commission from both a client and a consumer for the same transaction.
Not through the licensing system, in most cases. The Victorian Property Fund compensates loss where an estate agent, conveyancer or their representative has misused or misappropriated trust money or property. Consumer Affairs Victoria states expressly that a claim cannot proceed simply because of unprofessional conduct, bad advice or misrepresentation about a property, and a rejected claim can be appealed to VCAT within three months. Conduct complaints go through a separate Consumer Affairs Victoria complaint channel, which can lead to regulatory action against the agent but is not a compensation route for you.
We are not able to point you to a Consumer Affairs Victoria requirement that says so. CAV publishes explicit professional indemnity insurance requirements for conveyancers and for owners corporation managers, and we could find no equivalent published requirement for estate agents — so an earlier version of this page claiming a mandatory $1 million minimum has been removed rather than left standing unsourced. Treat professional indemnity cover as something to ask for and read, not something to assume: request the certificate of currency, and check the limit and the exclusions. PremiumRea carries cover and provides its certificate on request.
No. Industry membership is voluntary and is not a licence — an agency can be excellent without it and a member can still have licence problems. The licence check is the one that is legally load-bearing. REBAA does publish a free, state-filterable member directory, which is useful as a second independent list to cross-check a firm against, but run the register search first.
On the engagement letter, before you sign — that is where PremiumRea prints ours. Check the number against the Consumer Affairs Victoria register at the point of signing rather than relying on a website footer or an email signature: the register reflects current status including suspensions and cancellations, while a web page can go stale without anyone noticing.
That the practitioner acts solely for you; that they accept no payment from selling agents or developers in respect of properties they show you; the complete fee, whether it scales with purchase price, and what triggers it; which third-party costs sit outside the fee; and what happens if the search runs past the agreed timeline. Consumer Affairs Victoria requires an agent to tell you commission and expenses are negotiable before you sign an authority, and to disclose any rebate or discount they will receive — a rebate cannot lawfully be kept by the agent.
Every rule, penalty and process on this page traces to one of the primary sources below, each checked on 31 August 2026. Licence status, penalty unit values and legislation all change — check them at the source rather than trusting this page, which is the same advice this page gives about any agency’s website.
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