PLEASE READ THESE GENERAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THIS WEBSITE, ENGAGING US AS YOUR AUCTIONEER, ATTENDING AN AUCTION (BY ANY METHOD) OR BIDDING ON A LOT AT AUCTION (BY ANY METHOD)
What’s in these terms?
These general terms tell you the rules for using our website www.pianoauctions.co.uk/ (our site) and also include clauses which apply to all contracts between you and us, regardless of whether you are using our services to sell, attending an auction or bidding (whether successfully or not) on a lot at auction.
Click on the links below to go straight to more information on each area:
Who we are and how to contact us.
How you accept these terms.
There are other terms that may apply to you.
Use of our website and services from outside the UK.
Our services are only for users over the age of 18.
The nature of the services we provide.
We may make changes to our website and services.
We may suspend or withdraw our website.
We may transfer this contract to someone else.
Don’t rely on information on our website.
Our responsibility for loss or damage suffered by you.
How we may use your personal information.
How you may use material on our website and in our Auction Catalogues.
Further restrictions on use.
We’re not responsible for viruses and you must not introduce them.
We’re not responsible for websites we link to.
Rules about linking to our website.
Which country’s laws apply to any disputes?
Complaints about us.
Our trademark.
What happens if you want to transfer your rights and obligations under this contract.
After termination.
Who we are and how to contact us
We are Piano Auctions Limited a limited company (registration number 04717307). We are based at 18 Grove Place, Bedford, England, MK40 3JJ. The best way to contact us is by email ([email protected]) or by phone (01234 831742). Our VAT registration number is 810213003.
How you accept these terms
By using our website, engaging us as your auctioneers, attending an auction or bidding on a lot at auction, you confirm that you accept these terms of use and that you agree to comply with them.
If you do not agree to these terms, you must not do any of these activities.
We recommend that you print a copy of these terms for future reference (but note that we can change these terms from time to time).
In these terms we talk about “sellers” and “buyers”:
“Sellers” are those who register with us to list goods for sale by auction through us acting as their agent.
“Buyers” are those who visit our website with a view to buying goods from sellers at auction and/or attend an auction by any method and/or bid on one or more lots at auction, including winning bidders (and may register with us or with easyliveauction.com to participate in an auction as a bidder).
“Users” are all users of our website, including sellers and buyers, as well as anyone who just browses our site.
There are other terms that may apply to you
The following additional terms may apply to you, depending on whether you are a buyer or a seller, which also apply to your use of our site and our services:
Our Privacy Policy.
Our Cookie Policy, which sets out information about the cookies on our site.
General Auction Rules which apply to all sellers and to everyone who attends our auctions by any means open to them.
If you are a seller, our Seller Auction Terms will apply to you. If there is any conflict between these terms and the Seller Auction Terms, the Seller Auction Terms will apply.
If you are a seller, the Conditions of Sale apply as between you and the buyer who wins the bid on your lot at auction.
If you are a buyer (and remember, in these terms this includes anyone who participates in one of our auctions with a view to bidding, anyone who bids and anyone who wins a bid), our Buyer Auction Terms will apply to you. If there is any conflict between these terms and the Buyer Auction Terms, the Buyer Auction Terms will apply.
If you are a buyer who purchases goods from sellers who list them using our auction service, the Conditions of Sale apply to the contract(s) between you and each seller. That is a contract between the seller and you only and we are not a party to it. We act as agents for the seller in the auction process only and we only insist that the Conditions of Sale are used to ensure that all sellers who are registered in our auctions all treat their buyers in the same way, using the same set of terms and conditions.
You are responsible for ensuring that all persons who access our site through your internet connection are aware of these terms of use and other applicable terms and conditions, and that they comply with them.
We amend these terms and the terms, conditions and policies referred to above from time to time. Every time you wish to use our services, please check each applicable set of terms to ensure you understand the terms that apply to you at that time. Any changes we make will only take effect from the date of the change and not retrospectively.
Use of our website and auction services from outside the UK
We make no promise that our site is appropriate or available for use in locations outside the UK. If you choose to access the site from outside the UK and to place any item in an auction or to bid at auction for any item, you acknowledge that you do so on your own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local laws where they apply.
In particular, the Conditions of Sale are written so that English law applies to them. If the buyer or the seller is outside the UK, it may be that local law says that this is not valid and that some other rule applies. We do not have expertise in laws other than English law and it is for you to establish whether your local laws have an impact on the application of the Conditions of Sale to your sale or purchase. Sellers acknowledge that we don’t limit the buyers who can bid on lots at auction geographically. If the buyer who places the winning bid resides outside of the UK and applicable laws local to them apply to the sale, you agree to be bound by those local laws in all respects by placing your goods in our auction.
Our services are only for users over the age of 18
Only adults (that is, those aged 18 years and over) are entitled to enter into legally binding contracts and, as a result, only adults are entitled to register as sellers, and buyers through our auction service. By registering to sell or attend an auction or by bidding at auction you are making a statement, upon which we are entitled to rely, that you are aged 18 years or older and capable of forming a legally binding contract.
The nature of the services we provide
We are an auctioneer and our services are facilitating the sale and purchase of goods by sellers to buyers via the auction medium by acting as agent for sellers.
We don’t sell any goods directly to buyers under any circumstances. Any contract between a seller and a buyer is between them only, even though the auction services include acting as the seller’s agent to facilitate the sale.
Buyers, please see Buyer Auction Terms, and in particular Pre-auction recommendations and release (clause 7), General release (clause 15.12), General waiver and indemnity from you (clause 15.13), Returning goods to the seller (clause 16) for more on what we do and don’t do and your relationship with sellers.
We may make changes to our website and services
We may update and change our site and services from time to time to reflect changes to our services, our users’ needs and our business priorities.
We may suspend or withdraw our website
Our site is made available for browsing free of charge. To the extent that we charge sellers and buyers for providing them with certain auction services, separate terms apply: the Seller Auction Terms and the Buyer Auction Terms.
We don’t guarantee that our site, or any content on it, will always be available or be uninterrupted. We may suspend or withdraw or restrict the availability of all or any part of our site for business and operational reasons. We will try to give you reasonable notice of any suspension or withdrawal if you are registered as a seller or a buyer for an auction if the suspension or withdrawal will affect your ability to participate in the auction.
We may transfer this contract to someone else
We may transfer our rights and obligations under these terms to another organisation. If you are a consumer we will ensure that the transfer will not affect your rights under the contract between you and us.
Don’t rely on information on our website
The content on any blog section of our site is provided for general information only. It isn’t intended to amount to advice which you should rely on. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our website. Although we make reasonable efforts to update the information on our site, we make no representations, warranties or guarantees, whether express or implied, that the content on our site is accurate, complete or up to date.
Please carefully read clause 7 (Pre-auction recommendations and release) of the Buyer Auction Terms in relation to the then current online copy of our Auction Catalogue.
No reliance should be placed by sellers or buyers on the previous editions of our Auction Catalogue available to browse on our website, including the prices for which lots have sold at previous auctions.
Our responsibility for loss or damage suffered by you
Sellers should refer to the Seller Auction Terms and buyers should refer to the Buyer Auction Terms, each of which include provisions relating to the extent of our liability under our contract with you. It is very important that you read the applicable terms to your contract with us to fully understand the limits of our liability in relation to the auction services we provide. The Buyer Auction Terms, in particular, set out exclusions and limits of liability relating to the hard copy and electronic Auction Catalogue in clauses 7 and 15.
In relation to our website and its content:
Whether you’re a consumer or a business user:
We don’t exclude or limit in any way our liability to you where it would be unlawful to do so. This includes liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or the negligence of our employees, agents or subcontractors and for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation by us or by our employees, agents or subcontractors.
If you are a business user:
We exclude all implied conditions, warranties, representations or other terms that may apply to our site or any content on it.
Except as expressly set out above in Whether you’re a consumer or a business user, the limit of our liability to you will be £500.00.
We will not be liable to you for any loss or damage, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with:
use of, or inability to use, our site; or
use of or reliance on any content displayed on our site, including any past Auction Catalogues.
In particular, we will not be liable for:
loss of profits, sales, business, or revenue;
business interruption;
loss of anticipated savings;
wasted expenditure;
loss of business opportunity, goodwill or reputation; or
any indirect or consequential loss or damage.
If you are a consumer user:
Please note that we only provide our site for your domestic and private use. You agree not to use our site for any commercial or business purposes, and we have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.
How we may use your personal information
We will only use your personal information as set out in our Privacy Policy.
How you may use material on our website and in our Auction Catalogues
We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in our site and Auction Catalogues, and in the material published on and in them. Those works are protected by trademark and copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved.
You may print off one copy, and may download extracts, of any page(s) from our site (including the electronic Auction Catalogues or parts of them) for your personal use but only for as long as the materials appear on our site.
You must not modify the paper or digital copies of any materials you have printed off or downloaded in any way, and you must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text.
Our status as the authors of content on our site must always be acknowledged.
You must not use any part of the content on our site or in the Auction Catalogues for commercial purposes without obtaining a licence to do so from us or our licensors.
If you print off, copy, download, share or repost any part of our site or Auction Catalogues in breach of these terms of use, your right to use our site and auction services will cease immediately and you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made and we may terminate any contract between you and us for your breach, cancel any auction listing if you are a seller or refuse you access to any auction or refuse to accept your bid if you are a buyer.
Further restrictions on use
You mustn’t and agree that you won’t:
Do anything that might cause our site or system to crash.
Modify, translate, adapt, edit, decompile, disassemble or reverse engineer any programs we use in connection with our site, its system or the services we offer.
We’re not responsible for viruses and you must not introduce them
We don’t guarantee that our site will be secure or free from bugs or viruses.
You’re responsible for configuring your information technology, computer programmes and platform to access our site. You should use your own virus protection software.
You mustn’t misuse our site by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material that is malicious or technologically harmful. You mustn’t attempt to gain unauthorised access to our site, the server on which our site is stored or any server, computer or database connected to our site. You mustn’t attack our site via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack. By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use our site will cease immediately.
We’re not responsible for websites we link to
Where our site contains links to other sites and resources provided by third parties, such links shouldn’t be interpreted as approval by us of those linked websites or information you may obtain from them.
We have no control over the contents of those sites or resources.
We aren’t connected to any third party linked to from our site and when you access their site or app, you may be agreeing to their terms and conditions for use of their site or app.
We don’t guarantee that any links to third party sites or apps will work. We don’t monitor whether links are and remain valid and functioning.
In particular, please note that these provisions apply to the link to easyliveauction.com. Our Buyer Auction Terms and Seller Auction Terms say more about using easyliveauction.com to participate in our auctions and our use of it to facilitate online bidding.
Rules about linking to our website
You may link to our home page, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and doesn’t damage our reputation or take advantage of it.
You mustn’t establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists.
You mustn’t establish a link to our site in any website that isn’t owned by you.
Our site mustn’t be framed on any other site, nor may you create a link to any part of our site other than the home page.
We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice.
If you wish to link to or make any use of content on our site other than that set out above, please contact us at [email protected].
Which country’s laws apply to any disputes?
If you are a consumer, please note that these terms of use, their subject matter and their formation, are governed by English law, which means that the laws of England apply, but as a consumer you also enjoy the protection of mandatory consumer protection provisions of the law in the country in which you live. Any disputes are subject to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts. Wherever you live, you can bring claims against us in the English courts. If you live outside England, you can bring a claim against us in the country in which you live.
If you are a business, these terms of use, their subject matter and their formation (and any non-contractual disputes or claims) are governed by English law. We both agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England.
Complaints about us
Please tell us by email ([email protected]) or phone (01234 831742) if you have a complaint about us and we will work with you to try to resolve it for you.
Our trademark
“Piano Auctions Ltd” including our logo is a UK trademark of Piano Auctions Limited. You are not permitted to use it without our approval, unless it is part of material you are using as permitted under How you may use material on our site. In any event, you mustn’t use our trademark in any way which is misleading, defamatory, unlawful or breaches any of our policies or our terms which apply to you. In particular, you mustn’t say or do anything which suggests that the relationship between you and us is anything other than what it is or which suggests to buyers that their contract with you for the purchase of goods is with us.
What happens if you want to transfer your rights and obligations under this contract
You need to get our consent before you can transfer any of your rights and obligations under the contract but we won’t unreasonably withhold our consent.
After termination
Even if we block your access to our website or our auction services, these terms will continue to apply to the extent that they are intended to continue to apply after your use of our website or auction services ends, for example you will not abuse our trademark.