Straight answers · No obligation
Sell it yourself, or use a broker?
Selling your business yourself is legal, and this page does not pretend otherwise. It sets out what a broker actually does for the fee: blind marketing, buyer vetting, negotiation at one remove, and the paperwork through to settlement. Read it, then decide with the fees in front of you.
Nothing on this page is a sales pitch and nothing here is charged for. Last updated 15 September 2026.
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Check it yourself
Can I sell my business myself?
You can, and it is legal. What it costs is not the commission. It is confidentiality, the competitive tension that comes from several buyers rather than one, and the ability to run the campaign again if it stalls. A business that goes to market badly and gets withdrawn carries that mark with buyers, staff and competitors.
- You can sell a business yourself, but you only get one shot at it, and the market remembers a sale that stalls.
- A leaked or stale sale costs you staff, customers, suppliers and negotiating position, and there is no undo button.
- A broker runs it clean and confidential the first time, reaches buyers you cannot reach alone, and creates the competition that lifts the price.
- The broker also keeps the accountants and solicitors on both sides moving through to settlement.
The short answer, in six lines
Everything below expands on one of these, with the register or the regulator named so you can check it yourself.
At a glance
- Who needs a licence
- Selling a business for someone else for reward requires a Queensland Office of Fair Trading licence. Section 26 of the Property Occupations Act 2014 (Qld) authorises the holder “to buy, sell, exchange, or let businesses or interests in businesses”. Doing it without one is an offence under section 97, maximum 200 penalty units or 2 years imprisonment, which is $34,540 at the Queensland penalty unit of $172.70 applying from 1 July 2026.
- Selling your own business
- You need no licence to sell your own business. Section 97(1) of the Property Occupations Act 2014 (Qld) bites on a person acting “as an agent for someone else for reward”, and you are not an agent for someone else. A private sale sits outside the Act, and outside the trust account and claim fund protections that come with it.
- The form for a business
- Queensland runs two approved appointment forms. A business or commercial sale uses the PO Form 6A, commercial agent appointment or reappointment, version 1 dated May 2024, not the residential Form 6. Section 102 of the Property Occupations Act 2014 (Qld) makes acting before that appointment is signed an offence, maximum 200 penalty units, $34,540 at the penalty unit value from 1 July 2026.
- A defective appointment kills the fee
- Section 89 of the Property Occupations Act 2014 (Qld) bars a person from suing for, recovering or keeping a reward unless the person held the right licence, was authorised under it, and was properly appointed under part 4. In Podium Project Marketing Pty Ltd v B Global (Aust) Pty Ltd [2024] QDC 219, decided 12 December 2024, the District Court of Queensland applied section 89 and awarded an appointed agent $253,000 plus interest.
- Commission is not capped
- The Queensland Office of Fair Trading states: “We do not set a limit on how much commission you may charge as a property agent.” It goes in part 7 of the PO Form 6A as a percentage or a dollar amount, must include GST and say so, and cannot be changed once both parties have signed. No Australian regulator, court or statistical agency publishes a business broking commission range, so a range you read anywhere is that publisher’s own claim.
- Three lines the licence does not cross
- A Queensland Office of Fair Trading licence does not authorise tax advice, legal advice or dealing in financial products. Charging for a tax agent service while unregistered is up to 250 penalty units for an individual, $91,000 at the Commonwealth penalty unit of $364 from 1 July 2026. Engaging in legal practice without being an Australian legal practitioner is up to 300 penalty units or 2 years imprisonment under the Legal Profession Act 2007 (Qld) section 24, which is $51,810 at $172.70 from 1 July 2026.
A withdrawn listing follows the business
Take it to market badly, pull it, and bring it back six months later and it carries the mark. Buyers remember. So do staff, suppliers and competitors. There is no undo button on the one asset you cannot afford to get wrong.
What a broker actually does that you can't do alone
Strip away the objections and here's the plain list of what you're really paying for, none of which comes in a formula or a template:
Reach. Access to a pool of qualified buyers you simply cannot contact yourself, including the interstate buyers who often pay the most.
Confidentiality. A marketed process that protects your identity until a vetted buyer is committed, so your staff, customers and competitors don't find out on the grapevine.
Competition. More than one qualified buyer at the table at the same time. Competition between buyers is the lever I work hardest, because it is the one an owner selling alone cannot create.
Vetting. Buyers qualified for genuine intent and financial capacity before they waste your time, so you're not opening your books to tyre kickers and nosy competitors.
Deal management. Someone who keeps the sale alive through due diligence, negotiation and settlement. That is the stage with the most moving parts and the most people who can say no, and it is the one an owner is running alongside the business itself.
The honest bottom line
If your sale is small and simple with a buyer already in hand, doing it yourself can make sense, and a straight broker will tell you so. For everything else, what you are weighing is the fee against what a competitive, confidential process is worth to you. I will not tell you what that number will be, because nobody can tell you that before the campaign runs. What I will tell you is where the fee goes and what it buys, in full, on the fees page.
Australian Consumer Law reaches what a broker says about your business and about himself
Section 18 of the Australian Consumer Law, Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth), prohibits conduct in trade or commerce that is misleading or deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive. Intention does not come into it. The ACCC states the point plainly: “It makes no difference whether a business intends to mislead or not.” Section 29 prohibits false or misleading representations about goods and services, including as to standard, quality, value, history and price, and including representations about testimonials.
That reaches three separate things on a business sale. The turnover, the owner’s hours, the lease term, the licence status and the customer concentration passed to a buyer, each of which is a representation made by the agent and not only by you. The price expectation held out to win a listing and then quietly abandoned. And the broker’s own account of what he has done before.
The third one has the leading Australian penalty attached to it. On 15 November 2018 the Federal Court imposed penalties of $12 million on We Buy Houses Pty Ltd and $6 million on its sole director Rick Otton, $18 million in total, for breaches of sections 18, 29(1)(f), 29(1)(g), 34 and 37 of the Australian Consumer Law. The false claims included that buyers could “buy a house for $1, without needing a deposit, bank loan or real estate experience”. The court also found that representations that Otton had personally implemented the wealth creation strategies he taught were misleading. A statement about your own experience is actionable on exactly the same footing as a statement about a product.
Current maximum penalties, per the ACCC, are $2,500,000 for an individual and, for a corporation, the greater of $100,000,000, three times the benefit attributable to the conduct, or 30 per cent of adjusted turnover during the breach turnover period, reflecting changes implemented on 28 March 2026. The practical consequence for you is small and useful. Ask for the basis, not the number. “Where does that figure come from, and over what period” is the question that holds the conversation inside the ACCC’s own standard.
Straight talking, and firmly in your corner
Tony Pope is a licensed business broker. He brings more than twenty years working alongside the e-commerce and retail, transport, earthmoving, construction, mining services and interiors industries, so buyers get spoken to in their own language and your value gets argued from substance.
Add to that a confidential campaign, buyers approached and qualified individually, and negotiation handled at arm's length. That is the discretion and the competitive tension an owner selling alone simply cannot create, and all of it works for you, the seller.
The awkward part of a page like this
Everything on this page applies to Tony Pope the same way it applies to anyone else, so here is the position without decoration. He holds Queensland Office of Fair Trading licence 4963575, issued July 2026, and is a member of the Australian Institute of Business Brokers.
That is why this page is built out of sections, an approved form and a decided case rather than out of assurances. What he can point to sits outside broking. He co founded, owned, built and sold a toy business with his wife, so he has been the person on the seller’s side of the table. He holds a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment and has built and designed online safety training programmes. He runs sales and marketing for a hinterland tree farm. His father in law spent a working life growing turf in Queensland, built the business to substantial scale and sold it to competitors.
So test him the way the table above says to test anybody. Ask for the licence number and check it on the Queensland Office of Fair Trading register. Ask which form he will use, then read parts 4, 6, 7 and 8 before you sign anything. Ask what in the appraisal is fact and what is assumption. Ask what the fee covers, what it does not, and get both in writing before you sign. Then set those answers against the ones you get from everyone else you speak to, and decide. A broker who cannot survive those questions is not worth a fee.
Questions people ask
3 of the 21 answered in full on the questions page for this topic.
Do I legally need a broker to sell my business in Queensland?
No. Nothing in Queensland law requires you to use one. Section 97(1) of the Property Occupations Act 2014 (Qld) applies to a person who acts “as an agent for someone else for reward”. Selling your own business is not acting for someone else, so a private sale sits outside the Act entirely.
Can my accountant sell my business for a success fee?
Not without a Queensland Office of Fair Trading licence. Section 97(4) of the Property Occupations Act 2014 (Qld) contains the exemptions, and they are narrow: employees at an agent’s office, employees of rooming accommodation providers, a lawyer collecting rents, and a person selling manufactured homes. There is no accountant among them, and no exemption for a fee called something other than commission.
Can my solicitor act as the broker?
The Legal Profession Act 2007 (Qld) authorises legal practice. It does not authorise acting as a property agent for reward. A solicitor drafting the contract, advising on the special conditions and acting on settlement is practising law, which is exactly what you want a solicitor for.
More questions owners ask before appointing anyone, all 21 of them.
Go deeper
The long form, where it belongs
The full detail is on the pages below, each on its own page.
Check it yourself16 primary sources
Primary sources, none of them affiliated with me and none of them endorsing this site. Where anything here differs from an official source, the official source is right.
The terms the Act uses when you appoint a broker14 definitions
Plain definitions of the words a buyer, a financier or a regulator will use. Where a term has a statutory anchor, it is named.
“A property agent is an auctioneer or a real estate agent.” Property Occupations Act 2014 (Qld) section 15. Business broking sits inside that definition, because Queensland issues no separate business broker licence.
“A real estate agent is a person who holds a real estate agent licence authorising the performance of the activities mentioned in section 26.” Property Occupations Act 2014 (Qld) section 16. Section 26 has two limbs, real property in one and “businesses or interests in businesses” in the other, under a single licence.
The written instrument by which you appoint an agent, required by section 102 of the Property Occupations Act 2014 (Qld) before the agent may act for you. For a business or commercial sale it is delivered on the Office of Fair Trading approved PO Form 6A, version 1 dated May 2024.
Section 20 of the Property Occupations Act 2014 (Qld): a written agreement under which you may still sell independently or appoint other agents. The agent is paid only if the agent was the effective cause of the sale, and either party may end it by written notice.
Section 23 of the Property Occupations Act 2014 (Qld). One agent is appointed, and the agent is not entitled to commission if you personally caused the sale. Part 6 of the PO Form 6A warns that appointing a second agent during the term can mean “A commission to each agent (two commissions)”.
Section 23 of the Property Occupations Act 2014 (Qld). The agent “is entitled ... to receive an agreed commission or other reward, whether or not the selling agent is the effective cause” of the sale. Part 6 of the PO Form 6A puts it in plain words: the fee is payable “whether this agent, any other agent, or person (including the client themselves) sells the property”.
The test for commission entitlement where more than one party was involved. In Podium Project Marketing Pty Ltd v B Global (Aust) Pty Ltd [2024] QDC 219 the District Court of Queensland applied the formulation from LJ Hooker Ltd v Adams Estates Pty Ltd: “The inquiry is whether the actions of the agent really brought about the relation of buyer and seller.” The court held that more than one party can be an effective cause at the same time, and that an agent need not have had direct contact with the buyer.
The concept used in section 110(2) of the Property Occupations Act 2014 (Qld) to switch off the 90 day reappointment cap that section 110 imposes on residential sales. Section 110 is expressly confined to the sale of residential property, so the residential cap does not apply in terms to a business appointment.
The statutory description of what an agent is paid, used in section 89 of the Property Occupations Act 2014 (Qld). A person cannot sue for, recover or keep a reward or expense without the right licence, authority under it and a proper appointment under part 4. Section 89(2) makes keeping it anyway an offence, maximum 200 penalty units, $34,540 from 1 July 2026.
Money an agent receives on behalf of someone else, governed by the Agents Financial Administration Act 2014 (Qld). It must be paid into the general trust account “before the end of the first business day after receiving the amount” under section 16, and it is “not available to the agent’s creditors” under section 20.
Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) section 764A(1) opens “In this Division, each of the following is a financial product” and the list captures shares in a body. A sale of your company by transferring its shares is therefore a transaction in financial products, not a transaction in plant, goodwill and a lease.
ASIC Regulatory Guide 36 at RG 36.42 defines arranging as bringing “into effect the issue, variation, disposal or acquisition of, or application for, a financial product”. Arranging is dealing under section 766C of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), and dealing is a financial service. RG 36.45 adds that “whether a person’s activities constitute arranging is a question of degree”.
Per TPB(I) 39/2023 and section 90-5 of the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 (Cth), a service relating to ascertaining or advising on liabilities, obligations or entitlements under a taxation law. The third element is that it is provided “in a circumstance where the entity (or client) can reasonably be expected to rely on the service”.
The status required by section 24(1) of the Legal Profession Act 2007 (Qld) before a person may engage in legal practice, maximum penalty 300 penalty units or 2 years imprisonment. Section 24(4): a person who practises without it “is not entitled to recover any amount” for the work, and section 24(5) lets you recover what you already paid as a debt.
Ask what it is worth
Free, in writing, and nobody finds out you asked. Tell me the trade and the suburb and I will do the rest.
Nobody finds out you are selling. This goes to me only, into my own database in Sydney. I will not contact your accountant, your landlord, your bank or your staff, ever, unless you ask me to.
If you would rather not put anything in writing yet, ring 0431 124 128. Prefer to pick a time yourself? Book a time in my diary.
Find out where you actually stand
Before you decide to do it alone, have the conversation that tells you what the alternative actually looks like. Thirty minutes, no cost, no obligation, and nothing said in it goes anywhere.