Auction Terms

These terms apply to every sale by auction on this site. You accept them when you register for a sale, and they apply alongside our general terms of service.

Where these terms and the general terms differ on a point about bidding, these terms apply.

A lot is the thing offered for sale. The seller is the person offering it. We run the sale.

We conduct the sale and publish the lot. Unless a lot says in terms that we own it, we are not the seller and the sale contract is between the buyer and the seller.

We are not a licensed auction officer and we do not conduct judicial or court-ordered sales. Where a sale requires a public official under Cameroonian law, that sale is not conducted here.

We may refuse a registration, refuse a bid, withdraw a lot, correct an obvious error in a listing, and reopen bidding where a technical fault has affected the result. We act reasonably and we tell bidders when we do any of these.

You must have an account, be 18 or over, and register for the particular sale. Registration may be refused without reasons being given.

Where the lot requires a deposit, your registration is approved once the deposit is confirmed. Until then you cannot bid.

You bid in your own name. If you bid for someone else you must tell us in writing before the sale, and you remain personally responsible for the bid.

Your paddle number identifies you in the public bid history. Your name is not shown to other bidders.

Where a deposit applies, the amount is shown on the lot before you register.

A deposit is paid only to the accounts on our official payments page. It is held by us and not used for anything else.

If you do not win, your deposit is returned by the route it came in by, less any charge we were actually made to pay, within ten working days of the sale closing.

If you win, your deposit is applied to the price.

If you win and do not complete within the period in these terms, we may keep the deposit. That is a genuine estimate of what a failed sale costs us and the seller in re-offering the lot, not a penalty.

A bid is a binding offer to buy the lot at that price. It cannot be withdrawn, reduced or cancelled.

Each bid must be at least the bid step above the current highest bid, and the first bid must be at least the opening bid.

You are responsible for every bid placed through your account. Check the figure before you confirm it. A bid entered by mistake is still a bid.

Where the sale is hybrid, bids made in the room are entered by our staff against the bidder's paddle and rank equally with bids made online by time of receipt.

Bidding on your own lot, or arranging for someone to bid it up, is prohibited and voids the sale. We may suspend the account and report the matter.

A reserve is the lowest price the seller will accept. It is not published.

The lot page shows whether bidding has passed the reserve.

If the reserve is not met when bidding closes, the lot is not sold. We may then offer it to the highest bidder at the reserve, and either side may decline.

Where a lot has no reserve, that is stated, and the highest bid wins whatever it is.

Bidding closes at the time published on the lot, shown in Douala time.

Where a lot has a late-bid window, a bid placed inside that window extends the closing time by the published period. This repeats for as long as bids keep arriving, so that nobody wins by bidding in the last second.

Our server clock decides when a bid arrived. A bid that reaches us after closing does not count, whatever your device shows.

We may extend a sale where a technical fault has prevented bidding, and we will say so publicly on the lot.

The highest bid at or above the reserve when bidding closes wins, and the sale contract is formed at that moment between you and the seller.

We tell you that you have won and set out what to pay and by when.

The price is the hammer price, plus buyer premium where the lot states one, plus any duty, tax, registration or transfer cost. Those costs are yours unless the lot says otherwise.

Unless the lot states a different period, you must pay in full within seven days of the sale closing and collect or complete within twenty-one days.

Title passes when the price has been paid in full and cleared, and, where the law requires a further step such as registration before a notary, when that step is completed.

If you do not pay in full within the period, we may keep your deposit, cancel the sale, and offer the lot to the next highest bidder or re-offer it.

We may also suspend or close your account and refuse future registrations.

Where the lot is re-offered for less, the seller may pursue you for the difference. We are not a party to that claim.

Every lot is sold as it stands, on the basis of the condition report and the lot details published with it.

Those details are compiled from what the seller told us and what we saw. Where we could not establish something, the lot says so. Where a lot says a title is not established or a charge is unknown, treat it as a real risk and price it accordingly.

Inspect before you bid. Where a viewing or an open day is offered, use it. Where no viewing is offered, that is stated and you bid on the report alone.

A description is not a warranty of condition, and an estimate is not a valuation.

Nothing here excludes our liability for a description we knew to be false, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded, and your rights under Cameroonian consumer law stand.

A seller may withdraw a lot before bidding opens. After bidding opens a lot is withdrawn only where we are satisfied there is a proper reason, such as a defect in title discovered after listing or a court order.

Where a lot is withdrawn, deposits are returned in full.

We may cancel a sale where we discover the lot was listed without authority, is subject to an undisclosed dispute, or where the sale would be unlawful.

Where you are a consumer and the law gives you a right to cancel, that right is not affected. Note that a right of withdrawal from a public auction is restricted in many systems, and a lawyer can tell you how it applies to you.

Raise a dispute with us in writing within seven days of the sale closing. We will look at the bid record and tell you what we find.

The bid history recorded on our servers is the record of the sale. Where a genuine technical fault is shown, we may void a bid or reopen the sale.

A dispute about the lot itself, once sold, is between buyer and seller. We will provide the records we hold on a proper request.