Website Terms of Use

The Bidding Floor (“The Bidding Floor”, “the Platform”, “we”, “us”, “our”) is a website and online auction platform operated by Digital Auction Solutions Limited, a company registered in England and Wales under company number [company number], whose registered office is at [registered office address].

You can reach us by email at [support email], or by post at the address in clause 1.1. We aim to respond to enquiries within [X] working days.

We operate The Bidding Floor at https://thebiddingfloor.com and at any other domain, subdomain or branded auction site we operate from time to time. These Terms apply to all of them.

These Website Terms of Use (“Terms”), together with our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy, govern your access to and use of the Platform. Please read them carefully.

By accessing the Platform, viewing any Content, or registering an account, you confirm that you accept these Terms and agree to comply with them. If you do not accept them, you must not use the Platform.

Other terms may also apply to you, depending on what you do:

1. (a)

   Bidder Terms. To register as a bidder and place bids, you must separately accept our Bidder Terms. Those terms govern the bidding services we provide and take precedence over these Terms in respect of bidding.

2. (b)

   Auctioneer and seller terms. Each auction house or seller listing on the Platform sets its own conditions of sale, buyer’s premium, payment terms, collection arrangements and returns policy. Those terms form the contract between you and them. We are not a party to them and have no liability under them.

3. (c)

   Platform Agreement. If you are an auction house or seller using The Bidding Floor to run auctions, your use is governed by your Platform Agreement with us, which prevails over these Terms in the event of conflict.

You are responsible for reading the auctioneer’s terms before bidding. We recommend you also print or save a copy of these Terms.

We may amend these Terms from time to time, for example to reflect changes in the law, in regulatory requirements, in the services we offer, or in how the Platform works.

We will post the amended Terms on the Platform and update the “Last updated” date. Where a change materially affects your rights, we will take reasonable steps to bring it to your attention — for example by email to your registered address, or by an on-site notice — and, unless the change is required by law or needed for security reasons, it will take effect no less than 14 days after we notify you. Continuing to use the Platform after that date means you accept the amended Terms. If you do not accept them, you may stop using the Platform and close your account.

We may change, suspend or withdraw any part of the Platform, or the Platform as a whole, at any time. We will give notice where it is reasonable to do so, but we do not guarantee that the Platform, or any Content on it, will always be available or uninterrupted.

The Bidding Floor is a technology platform and a means of communication. We publish listings supplied by Auctioneers and provide the software through which registered bidders can view those listings and place bids.

We are not an auctioneer. We do not conduct auctions, we do not own or take possession of any Lot, and we do not act as agent for either party to a sale.

We are not a party to the sale. Any contract for the sale and purchase of a Lot is formed directly between you and the Auctioneer. We are not a party to that contract and accept no obligation or liability under it.

We do not handle buyer funds. Payment for any Lot is made by you directly to the Auctioneer, in accordance with the Auctioneer’s terms. We do not receive, hold, escrow or process purchase monies, and we are not a payment services provider. We do not guarantee that an Auctioneer will deliver a Lot, or that you will pay for one.

We do not describe, inspect or value Lots. All descriptions, images, estimates, reserves, attributions, condition reports, provenance statements, vehicle histories, certificates, gradings and reports are supplied by the Auctioneer or by third parties. We do not verify them, and we do not hold ourselves out as expert in any category of goods sold through the Platform.

Accordingly, we give no representation, warranty or guarantee of any kind concerning any Lot — including as to its description, authenticity, genuineness, quality, condition, attribution, provenance, age, origin, grading, certification, roadworthiness, title, safety, fitness for any purpose, legality, or availability for sale. If you have questions about a Lot, ask the Auctioneer.

Where the Platform provides tools that facilitate communication between you and an Auctioneer, we provide those tools on a reasonable-endeavours basis and accept no responsibility for the content, accuracy, timeliness or delivery of any message.

You may browse much of the Platform without registering. Some features, including bidding, require an account.

To register you must be at least 18 years old and have the legal capacity to enter into binding contracts. If you register on behalf of a business, you confirm you have authority to bind that business.

You must provide accurate, current and complete registration information, and keep it up to date. Please check your details on screen and correct any errors before completing registration.

You are responsible for keeping your password and account credentials confidential, and for all activity carried out under your account. You must notify us immediately at [support email] if you know or suspect that anyone else has obtained access to your account.

We may refuse a registration, or suspend or close an account, where we reasonably believe you have breached these Terms or the Bidder Terms, where we are required to do so by law, or where we have reasonable grounds to suspect fraudulent, abusive or unlawful activity. Where we do so we will tell you the reason unless prevented by law or by a legitimate security or investigative concern.

Provided you comply with these Terms, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable licence to access the Platform and to view and download Content for your own personal, non-commercial use in evaluating and bidding on Lots.

Separate or additional terms may apply to particular Content or software made available for download, in which case those terms govern that item.

We may revoke this licence, or withdraw Content from its scope, at any time.

You agree that you will not, and will not permit or enable any other person to:

1. (a)

   copy, reproduce, republish, transmit, distribute, sell, rent, sub-licence, publicly display, communicate to the public, or create derivative works from any Content, except as expressly permitted by clause 7.1;

2. (b)

   extract, re-utilise, scrape, spider, crawl, harvest, index, cache, mirror or systematically download any part of the Platform or the Content, whether by automated means or otherwise, or use any of it to build, populate, train or enrich any database, dataset, index, model or competing service;

3. (c)

   use any robot, bot, script, scraper, automated bidding tool or other automated means to access, monitor or interact with the Platform, except that bona fide search engines may crawl publicly accessible pages in accordance with our robots.txt file, a permission we may withdraw at any time;

4. (d)

   use the Platform or the Content in any way that damages, or is intended to damage, our commercial interests or those of our Auctioneers, licensors or affiliates;

5. (e)

   place bids you do not intend to honour, bid on your own or a connected party’s Lot, or take part in shill bidding, bid rigging, price fixing or any other manipulation of an auction;

6. (f)

   attempt to circumvent the Platform in order to transact with an Auctioneer off-platform in respect of a Lot you discovered through the Platform;

7. (g)

   circumvent, disable or interfere with any security, access-control or rate-limiting feature of the Platform, or probe or scan it for vulnerabilities;

8. (h)

   introduce any virus, worm, trojan, logic bomb or other malicious or technologically harmful material, or attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Platform, its servers, or any connected system;

9. (i)

   carry out any denial-of-service or distributed denial-of-service attack, or otherwise place an unreasonable load on our infrastructure;

10. (j)

    remove, obscure or alter any copyright, trade mark or other proprietary notice; or

11. (k)

    use the Platform for any unlawful, fraudulent or deceptive purpose, or in breach of any applicable sanctions, export control, anti-money-laundering or consumer protection law.

We may monitor use of the Platform and take such technical and legal measures as we consider appropriate to enforce this clause 8, including blocking IP addresses and suspending accounts.

Breach of clause 8.1(b) or 8.1(c) may also infringe our copyright and database rights and may constitute an offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report suspected offences to the relevant authorities and may disclose your identity to them.

Content is provided for general information only. It is not advice, and it is not intended to be relied upon in making any purchasing, valuation, investment or other decision.

Content may be out of date, incomplete or inaccurate at any given time, and we are under no obligation to update it. Sale dates, lot numbers, estimates, availability and withdrawal status in particular can change without notice.

Before bidding, you should independently satisfy yourself as to any matter that is important to you — including by inspecting the Lot, obtaining your own expert opinion, and reading the Auctioneer’s conditions of sale. Nothing in these Terms restricts your rights against the Auctioneer or seller.

We do not pre-screen Content supplied by Auctioneers. Where Content is unlawful, infringing, or in breach of the Auctioneer’s agreement with us, we will act on notice — please contact us at [support email].

We, or our licensors, own all Intellectual Property Rights in the Platform, in its look and feel, in The Bidding Floor name and logo, and in the Content (other than material owned by Auctioneers and licensed to us). All such rights are reserved.

The compilation, structure, selection and arrangement of listings on the Platform, and the databases underlying it, are protected by copyright and by database rights. Nothing in these Terms transfers any of those rights to you.

Except as expressly permitted by clause 7.1, you may not use any Content without our prior written consent.

If you believe Content on the Platform infringes your Intellectual Property Rights, contact us at [support email] with details of the material, your rights in it, and your contact details, and we will investigate.

You may link to our home page or to a lot listing page, provided you do so in a way that is fair and lawful, does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it, and does not suggest any association, approval or endorsement by us where none exists.

You may not frame the Platform on any other site, present it within any other site’s chrome, or link to it from any site you do not own or control. We may require you to remove any link at any time.

Where the Platform links to third-party sites, those links are provided for information only. We do not control, endorse or accept responsibility for those sites or their content.

We process personal data in accordance with our Privacy Policy, which forms part of these Terms.

You acknowledge that, in order to operate the Platform, we and the Auctioneers you transact with will collect, process, store and share personal data and transaction information about you — including bidding history, payment and default history, and feedback — for the purposes of operating and improving the Platform, verifying identity, preventing fraud and default, and meeting our legal obligations. Our Privacy Policy sets out the lawful bases on which we do this and the rights available to you under UK data protection law.

If you are a consumer. We provide the Platform with reasonable care and skill. If we fail to comply with these Terms, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breach — but we are not responsible for any loss or damage that is not foreseeable. Loss or damage is foreseeable if it is obvious that it will happen, or if both parties knew at the time you accepted these Terms that it might happen. We are not liable for business losses; if you use the Platform for any commercial or business purpose, the limits in clause 13.2 apply instead. Nothing in these Terms affects your statutory rights, including your rights against an Auctioneer as seller.

If you are a business. Subject to the paragraph above, we exclude all implied conditions, warranties and representations to the fullest extent permitted by law; we are not liable for loss of profit, loss of business, loss of anticipated savings, loss of goodwill, loss or corruption of data, wasted management time, or any indirect or consequential loss, however caused; and our total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with the Platform, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty or otherwise, is limited to the greater of (a) the total fees you have paid us in the 12 months preceding the event giving rise to the claim, and (b) £[cap].

Matters outside our control. We are not liable for any failure or delay in performance caused by an event beyond our reasonable control, including failures of internet or telecommunications infrastructure, hosting or third-party service failures, power failures, industrial action, epidemic, act of God, war, terrorism, or governmental action.

Third-party acts. We are not responsible for the acts or omissions of any Auctioneer, seller, buyer, shipper, payment provider or other third party, including any failure to deliver a Lot, any misdescription of a Lot, any failure to pay, or any dispute between you and any of them.

We do not warrant that the Platform will be secure, free from bugs or viruses, or available without interruption. You are responsible for configuring your own device, software and network, and for using your own virus protection.

These exclusions and limitations also apply for the benefit of our subsidiaries, holding companies, and their respective officers, employees and agents.

If you are a business user, you will indemnify us against all liabilities, losses, damages, claims, and reasonable costs and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) that we incur arising out of or in connection with your breach of these Terms, your negligent, fraudulent or unlawful use of the Platform, or your infringement of any third party’s rights.

If you are a consumer, clause 14.1 does not apply. You remain liable to us for loss we suffer as a result of your breach of these Terms to the extent provided by the general law.

We may suspend or terminate your access to the Platform, and the licence granted at clause 7.1, where you have materially breached these Terms, where we are required to do so by law, or where continuing to provide access presents a genuine risk to the Platform, to other users, or to us.

We will give you reasonable notice and an explanation before suspending or terminating your access, unless doing so would be unlawful, would prejudice an investigation, or the breach is such that immediate action is necessary.

You may close your account at any time by contacting us at [support email]. Closing your account does not affect any obligation you owe to an Auctioneer in respect of a bid already placed or a Lot already won.

Termination does not affect any rights, remedies or liabilities that have accrued before it. Clauses 4, 5, 8, 10, 13, 14, 16 and 17 survive termination.

Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and (where applicable) the Bidder Terms or Platform Agreement, constitute the entire agreement between us in relation to your use of the Platform, and replace any previous terms. Nothing in this clause limits liability for fraudulent misrepresentation.

Severability. If any provision or part of a provision is found to be unlawful or unenforceable, it will be severed or modified to the minimum extent necessary, and the remainder of these Terms will continue in full force.

No waiver. If we delay in enforcing any right under these Terms, that does not waive that right or any other, and does not prevent us from enforcing it later.

Assignment. We may assign or transfer our rights and obligations under these Terms to another entity, provided this does not adversely affect your rights. You may not assign, transfer or sub-licence your rights or obligations without our prior written consent.

Third-party rights. Except as expressly stated in clauses 2.3(b) and 13.6, a person who is not a party to these Terms has no right under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 to enforce any of them.

Language. These Terms are provided in English only, and the English version governs.

Notices. We may give you notice by email to your registered address, or by posting a notice on the Platform.

These Terms, and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with them (including non-contractual disputes or claims), are governed by the law of England and Wales.

If you are a consumer, you may bring proceedings in the courts of England and Wales, or in the courts of the part of the United Kingdom in which you live. If you live in Scotland, you may bring proceedings in Scotland or England and Wales; if you live in Northern Ireland, in Northern Ireland or England and Wales.

If you are a business, the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction, save that we may bring proceedings anywhere in the world to protect our Intellectual Property Rights or those of our licensors.

If you have a complaint, please contact us first at [support email]. We will acknowledge your complaint within [X] working days and aim to resolve it within [X] working days.

If we cannot resolve your complaint through our internal procedure, we will write to you setting out our final position and telling you whether we are prepared to refer the matter to an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) provider. We are not obliged to use ADR.

Free, independent consumer advice is available from Citizens Advice (opens in a new tab).

Complaints about a Lot, its description, payment, collection or delivery should be directed to the Auctioneer in the first instance, in accordance with their terms.