Quick answer: Most Irish residential property is sold by private treaty — an informal bidding process run by the estate agent. Under the Property Services (Regulation) Act 2011, the agent must keep a written record of every offer, can't accept bids from the seller, and must comply with anti-money-laundering checks (ID + proof of address). Nothing is binding until contracts are signed.
The three ways property is sold in Ireland
There are three legal methods to sell a property in Ireland, and each runs the bidding process differently:
| Method | How bidding works | Binding when |
|---|---|---|
| Private treaty | Informal back-and-forth offers via the estate agent. The vendor can accept any offer for any reason and can withdraw at any time before contracts. | Contracts signed and exchanged |
| Public auction | Bids called in real time at a published auction. The highest bid above the reserve wins the gavel and a deposit is paid on the day. | Hammer falls (the "fall of the hammer" creates a binding contract — confirmed in writing) |
| Tender / sealed bids | All interested buyers submit a single best-and-final offer in writing by a published deadline. The vendor selects one. | Contracts signed (similar to private treaty) |
The vast majority of residential property is sold by private treaty. Public auctions are more common for distressed sales, unusual lots, and high-end properties; tender is rare.
The private-treaty bidding process — step by step
Step 1: Register and prove who you are
The agent will ask for proof of identity (passport / driving licence) and proof of address (recent utility bill or bank statement). This is an Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirement — agents licensed by the Property Services Regulatory Authority (PSRA) must collect and retain this for everyone who makes an offer. If you refuse, the agent cannot lawfully accept your bid.
In a competitive market the agent will also ask for evidence that you can finance the offer — Approval in Principle (AIP) from a lender, or proof of cash funds. Many Irish agents now refuse to pass offers to the seller without this. (See Getting a Mortgage in Ireland and the First Home Scheme guide for the financing side.)
Step 2: Offer
You make your offer verbally to the agent (most common) or in writing. The agent communicates it to the seller and is legally required to record it. Section 61 of the Property Services (Regulation) Act 2011 requires the licensee to keep a written record of every offer received on a property, including time, amount, and the bidder's identifier. This record must be made available to the PRSA on audit and can be made available (with personal details redacted under GDPR) to a buyer who asks for it.
Step 3: Counter-bidding
If another buyer is interested, the agent typically calls you back to tell you a higher offer has been received and asks if you'd like to top it. The agent does not have to tell you the exact amount of competing bids, but they cannot lie about whether competing bids exist. They also cannot invent fake bids — under the Minimum Standards Regulations 2020 a licensee must communicate offers honestly, and Section 61 of the 2011 Act requires a written record of every offer. (A separate provision, Section 58, bars the seller — or anyone on their behalf — from bidding at a public auction; it is an auction-specific rule, not a private-treaty one.)
If you ask, the agent should be able to confirm the bid record exists and that the higher offer was real.
Step 4: Best and final
When the seller is ready to close the bidding, the agent may call for "best and final offers" — usually by a deadline (e.g. "all offers in by Friday 5pm"). Each bidder submits their final number, the seller picks one, and the agent issues a written "sale agreed" notification.
Sale agreed is not legally binding. Either party can still walk away. The Irish term for the seller doing this — accepting a higher offer after sale agreed — is gazumping (see below).
Step 5: Booking deposit
Once sale agreed, you'll be asked to pay a booking deposit — typically €5,000–€10,000, held by the agent in a client account. The deposit is generally refundable in full up until you sign contracts, but the exact terms are governed by the agent's own terms — get them in writing before you pay.
The booking deposit does not create a binding contract. It signals seriousness and gets the property removed from active marketing, but the vendor can still pull out.
Step 6: Contracts and exchange
Your solicitor receives a draft contract from the seller's solicitor. The conveyancing process begins — title checks, planning searches, mortgage drawdown. Typically 6–10 weeks. The sale becomes binding only when both parties sign contracts and the contracts are exchanged. At that point you typically pay the balance of the standard 10% deposit (less the booking deposit already paid).
What an estate agent can and can't do
Under the Property Services (Regulation) Act 2011 and the Minimum Standards Regulations 2020, a PSRA-licensed agent must:
- Hold a current PSRA licence (displayed on the office wall and on every listing they market).
- Maintain a written record of every offer (Section 61).
- Collect AML documentation from every bidder.
- Be honest about whether competing offers exist.
- Tell the seller about every offer received, not just the ones they prefer.
The agent cannot:
- Invent competing offers or run phantom bids — the Minimum Standards Regulations 2020 require offers to be communicated honestly. (Separately, Section 58 of the 2011 Act bars the seller, or anyone on their behalf, from bidding at a public auction — an auction-specific rule, not a private-treaty one.)
- Discriminate between bidders on protected grounds (religion, race, etc.) under the Equal Status Acts.
If you believe an agent has broken these rules, you can make a complaint to the PSRA.
Gazumping, gazundering, and how to protect yourself
Gazumping is when the seller accepts a higher offer from another buyer after they've already agreed to sell to you. It's legal in Ireland up until contracts are exchanged, and it can happen even after you've paid the booking deposit. The deposit is refunded, but you'll have spent on a survey, solicitor, and mortgage application that you can't recover.
Gazundering is the reverse: the buyer drops their offer at the last minute, after the seller has committed to moving on.
There is no legal protection against either in Ireland. To minimise the risk:
- Move quickly between "sale agreed" and "contracts exchanged" — every week of delay is a week the other side can change their mind.
- Have your AIP and solicitor lined up before you bid, so contracts can move as soon as the file lands.
- Don't commission a structural survey until you're confident the seller is committed.
- Ask the agent whether the seller has used the property's solicitor before — first-time vendors are often slow to instruct one.
Online bidding — a more transparent alternative
Some Irish platforms (Truehome, Auctioneera, and a small number of agency-run online auction sites) now run online bidding for residential property. Bids are placed on a website or app, each bid is timestamped, and the bid history is visible to every participant — typically against a pseudonymised identifier so other bidders can't see your name or contact details. This is the same legal framework as private treaty (nothing binding until contracts are exchanged in most cases), but the bidding mechanics are much more transparent than a verbal-offer phone chain.
A few practical differences:
- You see every competing bid in real time rather than being told indirectly by the agent.
- Bid history is auditable — there is a single source of truth across all bidders, which makes phantom-bidding accusations easier to test.
- Bid increments are often standardised (e.g. €1,000 / €5,000 steps), which prevents the "go on, just another fiver" pressure that some agents apply on the phone.
- Bidder identity is reserved until acceptance — most online platforms reveal the winner's identity to the agent only after a sale is agreed.
The underlying legal framework — PSRA rules, AML, contract law — is the same. The transparency is the differentiator.
Property Price Register — the after-the-fact transparency layer
Whether the sale was private treaty, auction, or tender, every completed residential sale in Ireland is published on the Residential Property Price Register once it has been stamped for duty. The register is run by the PSRA and updated weekly, showing the date of sale, the address, the price paid, and the property type. In practice a sale appears within roughly a couple of months of completion (once stamping is done). This means you can verify the final sale price after the fact — useful when researching what a similar property went for, but not useful in real time during a live bidding process.
Key takeaways
- Most Irish property is sold by private treaty — informal bidding, with an estate agent in the middle.
- Under PSRA rules every offer must be recorded in writing, agents can't accept bids from the seller, and AML checks apply to every bidder.
- Nothing is binding until contracts are signed and exchanged. Even after sale agreed and the booking deposit, either side can walk.
- Gazumping (seller accepting a higher offer) is legal in Ireland — protect yourself by moving fast and lining up your AIP / solicitor before you bid.
- Online bidding runs under the same legal framework but with materially more bid-history transparency.
For the buyer-side mechanics of submitting an offer and what happens at "sale agreed", see Making an Offer on a Property in Ireland. For what happens between sale agreed and contracts exchanged, see After Your Offer is Accepted.
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