All trust money must be held in a trust account in an authorised financial institution. For more information, see Opening a trust account.
Depositing trust money in a trust account
You must pay trust money into a trust account within strict timeframes. Either at the end of the:
- next business day after you receive the money, or
- third business day after you receive it, if your agency is more than 16 kilometres from an authorised financial institution.
If you are an agent’s representative and receive trust money, you must immediately pay it to the licensed estate agent that you represent; or to a trust account specified by that agent.
Receipts
When you receive trust money, you must provide a receipt.
If you use printed receipts, you must issue these in numerical sequence and have the words ‘trust account’ printed on them. You must keep a duplicate copy of each receipt (marked ‘duplicate’) for seven years. You must keep a register that records the:
- number printed on each receipt
- date a batch of receipts is received from the printer
- name of any employee or agent’s representative that receipts are given to
- date receipts are handed to an employee or agent’s representative
- date receipts are returned.
You do not need to provide a receipt for a cheque or an electronic funds transfer (EFT) payment if you recorded the payment electronically, and the person making the payment did not request a receipt.
You do not need to retain duplicate copies of receipts for cash, cheque or EFT payments if you recorded the payment electronically.
Deposit forms
When depositing trust money into a trust account by cheque or cash (not EFT), you must provide your financial institution with a completed trust account deposit form at the time of each deposit.
You can draft this form yourself. It must contain:
- the date of the deposit
- the name and number of your trust account
- the deposit amount
- whether the deposit consists of cheques or cash, and the total amounts
- if the deposit includes cheques, the name of the drawer, name and branch (or BSB number) of the financial institution against which the cheque is drawn and the amount of the cheque.
You must make and retain a duplicate copy of each completed trust account deposit form.