Real estate, business and conveyancing agents

If you are a licensed agent, you must hold all money you receive in a trust account.

This includes sales deposits, rent and security deposits (also known as bonds).

Under the Agents Licensing Act 1979 and the Agents Licensing Regulations 1979, this applies to you if you have a:

• real estate
• business or
• conveyancing licence.

If you have just been granted one of these licences, you must open a trust account within 7 days.

Find out what the account must include and how you must manage it below.

If you’re employed by a company

You are exempt from opening and maintaining an account if:

• you’re employed by another licensed agent e.g. a real estate company and
• monies received are held in an account by them.

Setting up an account

You must open an account in the Northern Territory at one of the following approved deposit taking institutions:

• Macquarie Bank
• Commonwealth Bank
• Bendigo Bank
• ANZ Bank
• Westpac Bank
• National Australia Bank
• BankSA.

It must have a BSB that reflects this and also have a title that includes:

• your name or your business name (if you do business under a registered business name)
• the words ‘trust account’ and
• ‘security deposits’ - if it only holds security deposits (as defined in section 63 of the Business Tenancies (Fair Dealings) Act 2003 and section 4 of the Residential Tenancies Act 1999) and any interest on them.

When you open an account

You must notify the department within 7 days when you open an account.

If you plan to have multiple, you must do this for each one.

You can notify the department by filling in the notification form and emailing it to boardservices.ditt@nt.gov.au.

Notification of opening a statutory trust account PDF (171.1 KB)
Notification of opening a statutory trust account DOCX (85.9 KB)

Failure to do so is an offence under the Act and may result in penalties or disciplinary action.

Auditing your account

Under the Act, your trust account must be audited:

• by a qualified auditor
• within 3 months of the end of a prescribed period.

For most agents, the prescribed period is the financial year - e.g. 1 July to 30 June.

This means you must have your trust account audited by 30 September each year.

Failure to comply is an offence under the Act and may lead to penalties.

Exemption

If you did not receive or hold any monies within the prescribed period, you can be exempt from auditing your account.

To be exempt, you must lodge a statutory declaration by email to boardservices.ditt@nt.gov.au.

You must do this within 2 months of the prescribed period.

If you stop being an agent

Within 2 months of stopping your business as a licensed agent, you must have your account audited.