What to check before bidding at auction

Work backwards from the advertised auction time. If a step is still unknown when you register to bid, you are bidding with that unknown. Bidder-registration rules exist in some states. This page does not invent a national registration day. Ask the agent and your conveyancer what that campaign requires.

1. Days before: get the contract, including any attached planning certificate, title search, s32, Form 1 or other vendor pack used in that state. Your conveyancer reads it. Ask for amendments in writing if needed. Some vendors will agree before auction. Some will not.
2. Days before: building and pest inspection done. For units, strata or body corporate records read. You pay for this whether you win or not.
3. Days before: finance that can support an unconditional purchase. Pre-approval is not the same as an approval on this property. Confirm the deposit amount and how it will be paid that day.
4. Days before: zone, overlays and this-lot applications checked on the official portal for that council. Hazard layers checked. Indicative insurance quote obtained. Nearby applications read. See how to research a property.
5. Days before: a written maximum built from recorded comps and your finance, not from the campaign guide. See asking price. In Queensland, official material says a price guide cannot be provided at auction.
6. Auction day: you bid only to the written number. If you win, you sign the displayed contract and pay the deposit. Consumer Affairs Victoria: you cannot add finance or inspection conditions unless the seller agrees.
7. After winning: there is usually no cooling-off. Settlement work begins. After losing: the inspection and legal spend is sunk. That cost is part of choosing auction.

Official pages name auction as an exception to cooling-off. The private-treaty row still matters if the campaign turns into a signed contract before or after the event.

Labelled illustration. Auction advertised for Saturday. Consumer Affairs Victoria: if you sign a pre-auction offer less than three clear business days before that Saturday, you do not get cooling-off. If you wait and win on Saturday, you also do not get cooling-off. The inspection, the s32 read, the finance and the written limit therefore have to be finished earlier in the week, not on Friday night.

If the property is passed in and you negotiate on Saturday afternoon, you are still inside the three-clear-business-day window after the auction. Cooling-off still does not apply. The only remaining protections are conditions the seller will still accept, which on auction day are often none.

These mistakes assume a second chance that official material has already removed.

• Bidding on pre-approval only, then meeting a lender valuation or policy that will not support the price.
• Relying on the vendor’s attached documents without your conveyancer reading them.
• Skipping the building inspection because you might lose the property. You might. That is the cost of this method of sale.
• Raising the written limit in the room because the guide sat lower than the comps. The guide was marketing.
• Signing a Victorian or NSW pre-auction contract in the auction window and expecting private-treaty cooling-off.

It does not establish that the reserve will sit under it, or that another bidder will stop. It does not establish value. Districts does not see the reserve, the bidders record or the contract on display. An unknown flood or DA slot on the property page is risk you would carry unconditionally if you bid. Close it with the council or your conveyancer before the day, or do not bid.

The property page collects parcel, sales history, zone and overlays, flood intersection, nearby applications and rent evidence, and shows which of the ten checks could not be completed. For an auction those unknown checks are work with a deadline. Districts does not hold auction rules, deposits or cooling-off exceptions. Those sit with your conveyancer and the consumer body in that state or territory.

Conveyancer: contract, vendor pack, deposit, and whether any cooling-off exception already applies to a pre-auction offer. Lender: this property, this price band, this hazard finding. Inspector: written report. Insurer: indicative cover. Official portal: zone, overlays, this-lot applications. If any of those is still unknown at the advertised start time, the bid is a choice to carry that unknown.