Property Leads is a guide to the Spam Act rules for real estate agents who prospect by email and text message, written and published by Dotto. The Act’s test of a commercial message names property outright: one whose purpose, or one of whose purposes, is to offer, advertise or promote land or an interest in land, or someone who supplies it. Such a message, if it has an Australian link, must identify who authorised it and, unless it is a designated kind such as a purely factual message, may be sent only with consent and must carry a functional unsubscribe facility.
General informationAbout the Spam Act 2003 as it applies to emails and texts, not legal advice about any message or campaign. The regulator is the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), whose page on avoiding spam is the place to check, and the Act itself is on the Federal Register of Legislation.
Three marks, one record
The ACMA says that, once a business has consent, its message must identify the business as the sender, include its contact details, and make unsubscribing easy. This guide gives each duty a mark:
- Consent: sent without it
- Sender: missing or inadequate details of who sent it
- Unsubscribe: no working way to opt out
The strip at the top of every page is drawn from the ACMA’s yearly lists of investigation outcomes. Each stem is one published spam outcome from June 2023 to July 2026; its height is the amount of the infringement notice, and the marks beneath it are the failings named in the ACMA’s one-line description. Of the 17 outcomes, 15 name sending without consent, 13 name a missing or broken unsubscribe, and 4 name missing or inadequate details of the sender. Each guide lights the stems that belong to its own duty.
The ACMA describes its approach as scaled to the risk of harm and the impact on consumers: it may give businesses compliance information, warn a business when complaints come in, investigate serious or ongoing problems, and take enforcement action where it is warranted.
The guides
- When an agent’s email or text is a commercial messageThe Act’s test of purpose, the three paragraphs that name land, the messages it sets aside, and the Australian link.
- Consent before the first messageFrom the first enquiry to the day an unsubscribe takes effect, in order, with a worked count of business days.
- Naming the sender, and registering a branded text nameWho the Act treats as authorising an agency’s message, what it must carry, and the SMS Sender ID Register.
- An unsubscribe that worksSection 18 set beside the ACMA’s own reading, and why a reply to a branded text name can fail.
- Enforcement as the ACMA reports itThe ACMA’s tools, the maximum penalties in penalty units, and its published spam outcomes from 2023, without names.
The rules in brief
- Consent first
The ACMA says a business needs consent from each recipient before it sends marketing messages, including when another party does the sending for it, and that the burden of proving consent sits with the sender.
- No asking by message
A request for consent sent as an email or text is itself a marketing message, the ACMA says, so it cannot be how consent is sought.
- Bought lists
Buying or using a marketing list leaves the business responsible for consent to every address on it, and lists made with address-harvesting software may not be supplied, acquired or used.
- Branded texts
Since 1 July 2026, a text sent under an organisation’s name at the top needs that sender ID registered.
Where this guide stops
These pages cover commercial emails and text messages only. Phone prospecting and the rules on keeping a contact database are left out. The Spam Act says it is not meant to exclude or limit a state or territory law that can operate alongside it, so a state rule may apply as well; the official pages linked on each guide are the place to check.