A private sale with no agent is not the seller's AML trigger

People search this when a buyer and seller deal direct and someone asks whether the kitchen-table sale has an AML file. Checked against AUSTRAC's real estate designated services on 5 October 2026. The page was last updated on 31 August 2026. This is general information, not legal advice. This page does not reproduce that guidance. A developer selling its own stock is a different case, covered in in-house sales. The conveyancer's program is the conveyancer starter kit. Who the customer is, when an agent is involved, is who the customer is in real estate. The sector map is /tranche-2.

The seller is not brokering their own house

AUSTRAC describes the real estate designated service in table 5 of the Act as brokering the sale, purchase or transfer of real estate on behalf of a buyer, seller, transferee or transferor, in the course of carrying on a business. The customer of that service is both parties. A broker, in AUSTRAC's words, acts as an intermediary or agent for another person for consideration. A common sign is negotiating, or finding someone to transact with, for a commission. A person selling the house they live in, to a buyer they found themselves, is not doing that job.

The same page says incidental sales of real estate by a business, and private sales of residential property, are not captured under these designated services. The example AUSTRAC gives is a person who runs a business on premises they own, and who negotiates and sells those premises direct to a buyer. That sale is outside the real estate services because it is not carried out as part of a business of selling real estate. A family home sold without an agent sits in the same gap, for the same reason. Owning a house and selling it is not a business of selling houses.

The transfer can still be someone else's designated service

The private sale does not switch the law off for the professionals on the file. AUSTRAC says a lawyer or conveyancer who helps plan or execute the sale, purchase or transfer of real estate may be regulated under different designated services, and it points them to the professional services guidance. On that side, assisting a person in the planning or execution of a transaction to sell, buy or transfer real estate, in the course of a business, is item 1 of table 6. The customer is the person the professional acts for. A private treaty is one of the ways AUSTRAC says that work can start: when a buyer and a seller agree the price, even before a deposit is paid or contracts are exchanged.

So the practical split is this. The couple selling their house through a listing on a community board do not enrol with AUSTRAC because of that sale. The conveyancer they instruct to draw the transfer may have to know the customer before the designated service proceeds, under that conveyancer's own program. The buyer's conveyancer is a separate firm with a separate customer. Neither of those firms can point at the missing agent and say the file is exempt. The absence of an agent removes the brokering service. It does not remove the professional service.

• Name the role. Seller, agent, developer, conveyancer and lawyer are not the same person for this test.
• Private residential sale. AUSTRAC says it is not captured under the real estate designated services.
• Business of selling real estate. A developer, including one using its own sales staff and no external agency, can still be providing item 2 of table 5.
• Professional on the transfer. Planning or executing the transfer can be a table 6 service for the firm that is instructed.
• Court orders. Some transfers that give effect to a court or tribunal order are treated differently. This page does not decide a family-law file.

The case people mix up with a private sale

Item 2 of table 5 is selling or transferring real estate in the course of carrying on a business of selling real estate, where an independent agent does not broker the sale. The customer is the buyer or transferee. AUSTRAC's examples are house-and-land packages, apartments off the plan, and blocks in new subdivisions, including where the developer uses its own staff rather than an external agency. That is a business whose trade is the selling. It is not a household selling one home. Calling a developer sale a “private sale” because no external brand is on the board does not make it item 2's opposite. It is the case item 2 was written for.

What the buyer and seller should expect

If you are the household, do not enrol because a blog told you every property sale is now regulated. Read the role. If nobody is brokering, and you are not in the business of selling real estate, AUSTRAC's real estate page is not pointing at you. If you then instruct a conveyancer, expect that firm to ask who you are. That request comes from their obligation, not from yours. Pay their check if their process says the client pays it. You do not need your own AML program to sell the house.

Where this page stops

This page is the no-agent sale. It is not the whole of table 6, and it does not decide a transfer under a court order. Designated services for professional firms are set out in table 6.

What the client pays

On FreeAML the firm suite is A$0. The firm emails the client a link. Verification is client-pays. On the public list a personal KYC check is A$20 and a company or trust KYB check is A$40. There is no subscription. Confirm the live amounts on FreeAML pricing. FreeAML does not enrol a private seller, and it does not decide that a conveyancer's matter is a designated service. Where that firm does run a check, the client pays it.

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