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Online auctions: advantages and how to bid?

15. March, 2021No Comments

Online auctions: advantages and how to bid?

Online auctions in enforcement proceedings will facilitate, speed up and simplify bidding, while the possibility of reviewing sales data online will facilitate access and save time when searching for the desired item (through the use of search filters, for example by item or call price). The online auctions will allow people to bid anonymously from the comfort of their armchair, eliminating unnecessary additional transport costs to the auction venue. The purpose of making auctions accessible to a wider audience, i.e. a greater number of potential buyers, is to help creditors and debtors in the enforcement proceedings, as more potential buyers equals greater competition and consequently a higher final price for the item going under the hammer, which in turn leads to a higher rate of repayment of the debt outstanding. 

For the time being, only online auctions for real estate and rights (for example, shareholdings) in enforcement proceedings will be possible (movables will still be sold only via classic, in person, auctions, with classic auctions also to be held in insolvency proceedings). Regardless of this, website SodneDrazbe.si also provides access to and an overview of items for sale that cannot be purchased through an online auction but only at a classic auction (i.e. movables in the enforcement procedure). 
Registration for an online auction will be possible using a qualified certificate or using the smsPASS service. In any case, a SI-PASS user account is required, which you can sign up for when first registering (therefore this is the same procedure as when using the eUprava portal). 
Once registered to bid on a given item of sale, the bidder will receive a unique sign that will allow them to bid anonymously in the online auction. Information regarding the payment of the security deposit will be provided once the bidder has been registered, which will (as before) have to be paid three working days before the auction. 
Bidders will be notified of each new bid during the course of the auction (bids by other bidders will be visible – of course anonymously), while the online auction will be extended each time by two minutes if one of the bidders submits a new bid two minutes or less before the auction ends – the auction will therefore last as long as there is interest on the part of the bidders to make new bids. Members of the public i.e. non-bidders will be able to monitor the auction, including the bids made and the highest bidder. However, access to the auction report will be restricted to bidders only. 
Pre-emption beneficiaries will be invited, within ten minutes after the concluded auction, to declare whether they wish to exercise their right and are ready to purchase the sold item under the same conditions as the highest bidder. If several pre-emption beneficiaries exercise their pre-emption right, the auction will continue in the classic form. 
Bidding in this manner will help not only to enhance transparency, but also help to cut down on strong-arm tactics by individual bidders on other bidders which sometimes occurred at in person auctions. 

Author: Tina Marciuš Ravnikar, Associate