The New South Wales Government has announced further plans to outlaw false bids at property auctions.

Two years ago, the Government introduced laws making it illegal for unregistered bidders to participate in auctions.

Fair Trading Minister Diane Beamer has released a survey showing real estate agents and auctioneers are complying well with the 2003 laws.

But she says the Government plans to introduce new laws to make property auctions more transparent.

“These new laws will make it a breach of the Act if you make a dummy bid on behalf of the vendor,” she said.

“We’ll actually get the bidder instead of the auctioneer or the vendor and this is to clarify our legislation.

“So penalties for dummy bidding will be up to $27,500 for individuals and $55,000 for corporations.”

The Real Estate Institute of New South Wales says the laws have come out of the blue and are unnecessary.

Institute president Rowen Kelly says there was no consultation with the industry on the changes.

“There’s been no discussion with the industry at all about this and … we’ll be seeking to meet the Minister on Monday or Tuesday to just try to ascertain as to where this all came from,” he said.

Posted: 10|30|05 at 10:12 am. Filed under: Property News.