In Western Australia, clause 24 of the agents’ Code of Conduct 2016 requires an agent or sales representative to make all reasonable efforts to find out or verify the material facts before a client signs a contract, and to promptly tell a material fact to anyone who may be affected by it and appears unaware of it. In Queensland, sections 209 and 212 of the Property Occupations Act 2014 forbid false or misleading representations, by a marketeer in a sale of residential property and by a licensee or real estate salesperson, and each section counts the wilful concealment of a material fact in a representation as false or misleading.
General informationThis page describes the Western Australian code as published on the state’s legislation site and the Queensland Act in its copy current as at 1 August 2025, not what applies to any one sale. Each rule binds the people it names, and is set out here in its own terms. A solicitor can say how either bears on a particular purchase.
Western Australia: clause 24, two duties
The code binds agents and sales representatives: each one acting for a client must comply with it, and an “agent” in the code means a licensed agent. Clause 24, headed “Material facts”, sets two duties that run at different moments.
24(1): find out, before the contract
Before a client signs any contract for the sale or lease of real estate or a business, the agent or sales representative must make all reasonable efforts to find out or confirm “all facts material to the transaction”.
The measure is a prudent one: the facts are those “that a prudent agent or sales representative would ascertain or verify”.
24(2): pass it on, promptly
An agent or sales representative “must promptly communicate a material fact to any person who may be affected by the material fact and appears to be unaware of it”.
The subclause speaks of “any person” who may be affected, and it does not mention the client. Two conditions sit in it: the person may be affected, and appears to be unaware.
Subclause (1) also gives the term its meaning in the clause: the facts material to the transaction are “the material facts”.
Queensland: two sections, two sets of people
Queensland’s rules sit in Part 11 of the Property Occupations Act 2014. The material fact words appear inside each section’s meaning of “false or misleading, for a representation”.
| Point | Section 209 | Section 212 |
|---|---|---|
| Whom it binds | A marketeer: a person directly or indirectly involved in the sale of residential property, its promotion, or a service connected with it, under a formal or informal arrangement | A licensee or real estate salesperson |
| What property | Residential property in Queensland: real property used or meant to be used for living in, but not property used mainly for industry, commerce or primary production | Real property, in its letting, exchange or sale |
| What it forbids | Representing “in any way to someone else anything that is false or misleading”, in connection with the sale, for promoting it, or for a service connected with it | Representing to someone else anything false or misleading about letting, exchanging or selling real property |
| The material fact words | Subsection (7): “false or misleading, for a representation, includes the wilful concealment of a material fact in the representation” | Subsection (8): the same words |
| Penalty or remedy in the section | No penalty in subsection (1); the Act’s note points to part 9 for remedies | Maximum penalty of 540 penalty units for subsection (1) |
| Other law | Sections 207 to 209 are in addition to other law about the same conduct, and do not limit it | Section 212 does not limit another Act or law about false or misleading representations |
How Queensland tests a representation
Both sections carry the same three tests, and they explain how far “false or misleading” reaches beyond a plain untruth.
The impression it leaves
A representation is taken to be false or misleading if it would reasonably tend to lead someone to believe in a state of affairs that does not exist, whether or not it says that state of affairs exists.
Grounds for saying it
A representation made without reasonable grounds is taken to be misleading, and the person who made it carries the onus of showing the grounds.
Concealment inside it
The wilful concealment of a material fact in the representation is included in “false or misleading”.
Each section adds one more line. Under section 209, a marketeer cannot rely as a defence on showing that an agreement with the person was ended, or that the person never entered one because of the representation; section 212 says the same of a defendant prosecuted under it.
The two states, read together
Western Australia’s clause asks something of the agent: to find out before the contract, and to tell. Queensland’s sections describe what a representation may not be, and bring wilful concealment within it.
Whether something said or left unsaid in a particular sale crossed either line is a question a solicitor can answer, reading it against the section itself.