Licensees under the Property, Stock & Business Agents Act 2002 are required to hold clients’ funds in a trust account kept at an authorised deposit-taking institution in New South Wales and approved by the Commissioner for Fair Trading. 

Approved deposit-taking institutions

The Commissioner for Fair Trading has approved the following authorised deposit-taking institutions for the purposes of holding licensed agents’ and conveyancers’ trust funds: 

• ABS Building Society Ltd
• Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ)
• Bananacoast Community Credit Union Ltd
• Bank of Queensland
• BankWest
• Bendigo Bank Limited
• Berrima District Credit Union Ltd
• Coastline Credit Union Ltd
• Commonwealth Bank
• Elders Rural Bank Limited
• Greater Building Society Ltd
• Holiday Coast Credit Union Ltd
• HSBC Bank Australia Limited
• Hume Building Society Ltd
• Illawarra Mutual Building Society Limited
• Laiki Bank (Australia) Limited
• Macarthur Credit Union Ltd
• Macquarie Bank Limited
• Maitland Mutual Building Society Limited
• National Australia Bank Limited
• New England Credit Union Ltd
• Newcastle Permanent Building Society Ltd
• Reliance Member Banking
• St. George Bank Limited
• Southern Cross Credit Union Ltd
• The Summerland Credit Union Ltd
• Suncorp-Metway Ltd
• Westpac Banking Corporation.

Licensee requirements when opening a trust account

When opening an account, licensees are required to notify the authorised deposit-taking institution in writing that it is a trust account required under the Property, Stock and Business Agents Act 2002.

If the trust account is held by a corporation, the trust account is to be in the name of the corporation. In any other case, the trust account is to be in the name of the licensee or the firm of licensees of which the licensee is a member.

The name of the licensee or firm of licensees or corporation is to appear as a prefix of the account name, followed by any other necessary identifier of the trust account.

The words ‘Trust Account’ must appear in the name of the trust account and all cheques drawn on the trust account.

The Commissioner has provided standard trust account notice forms, for this purpose, as follows:

Trust account(s) notice (known as the blue form)

The blue form is the appropriate method for a licensee to give notification to an authorised deposit-taking institution, at the time of opening, of the following type of accounts:

• general trust accounts
• a separate trust account (but excluding exclusive benefit of vendor and purchaser of land accounts), where instructions to open the account has not been obtained.

This form meets your required notification for the interest of those account(s) to be directed to Fair Trading.

The means of completion of the 'blue form' is for it to be signed by the licensee (in triplicate) for lodgement with the authorised deposit-taking institution.

• Original – to be retained by the authorised deposit-taking institution
• Duplicate – to be sent by the agent to Fair Trading (signed by the authorised deposit-taking institution), to the address indicated on the form
• Triplicate – to be retained by the agent (signed by the authorised deposit-taking institution).

The blue form can list up to three of the above type of trust accounts that are being opened.

View or download the Trust account(s) notice (blue form) in PDF format (size: 22k).

Trust account(s) exemption notice (known as the pink form)

This pink form is to be used whenever you are opening a separate account, on the instructions of the client whom those funds belong to, or the separate account opened for the exclusive benefit of vendor and purchaser of land, which type of accounts are therefore under this instruction, exempt from the interest to be directed to Fair Trading.

The means of completion of this pink form is for it to be signed by the licensee, (in duplicate), for lodgement with the authorised deposit-taking institution.

• Original – to be retained by the authorised deposit-taking institution
• Duplicate –  to be retained by the agent (signed by the authorised deposit-taking institutiuon).

Note: do not send a copy of this pink form to Fair Trading – keep the copy in your records.

The pink form can list up to three of the above type of trust accounts that are being opened.

View or download the Trust account(s) exemption notice (pink form) in PDF format (size: 22k).

Unclaimed trust moneys to be checked as at the end of December each year

Licensees who hold trust moneys that are more than two (2) years old as at the reconciliation of trust at December should have completed and lodged the appropriate unclaimed trust moneys form as required under the provision of section 96 of the Act.

View or download the Statement Of Unclaimed Trust Moneys Held By Licensee form in PDF format (size: 30k).

Authorised deposit-taking institutions’ requirements

The Act sets out requirements for approved authorised deposit-taking institutions with regard to:

• the calculation of interest on agents’ trust accounts
• the payment of a prescribed proportion of interest earned on agents’ trust accounts to the Property Services Statutory Interest Account
• monthly reporting to the Commissioner for Fair Trading,
• annual auditor’s certificate to the Commissioner for Fair Trading.

View or download the Summary of responsibilities for authorised deposit-taking institutions in PDF format (size: 18k).

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