General Terms of Use
These Terms and Conditions of Use and the other documents we refer to below (together referred to as our ‘Terms of Use’) govern every way of using our Online bidding platform. By accessing or using our Online bidding platform, you agree to comply with and be bound by these Terms of Use. Please read them carefully so you know your rights and obligations when you use our Online bidding platform.
Article 1: Applicability of these Terms of Use
Our Terms of Use form a legally binding agreement (the ‘Agreement’) between California Dream B.V. (‘California Dream’, ‘Unique Car Auctions’, ‘us’, or ‘we’) and you. They govern your access to and use of California Dream’s website named Unique Car Auctions, including any subpages and subdomains of the website, our mobile, tablet, and other smart device applications, our application program interfaces (collectively, ‘Applications’), and all associated services that are offered through our Applications (collectively, our ’Services’). We will refer to our Applications and Services as our ‘Online bidding platform.
Any other general terms do not apply to the use of our Online bidding platform. If there is conflicting information between the English version of our Terms of Use and the other language versions, the English version prevails. Any (legal) terms and concepts used in these Terms of Use will, however, be interpreted according to Belgian law.
Article 2: Our other applicable policies
If you sell or purchase Lots on our Online bidding platform, the following documents apply to you. These documents form an integral part of our Terms of Use and by using our Online bidding platform, you agree to them.
Seller Terms. If you offer up Lots for auction on our Online Bidding platform, specific rules for Sellers apply to you. Read them here.
Buyer Terms. If you purchase Lots on our Online Bidding platform, specific rules for Buyers apply to you. Read them here.
Article 3: Your privacy
Protecting your personal information is important to us. In our Privacy Policy, you can read how we process your personal information. By using our Online Bidding platform, you agree that we can use your information for the purposes set out in our Privacy Policy.
To enable our Users to fulfil their obligations under a Contract of Sale, we provide Users who require it with the necessary personal information (e.g. name, email address, phone number, and address) of other Users. For example, a Seller needs this information to be able to ship a Lot to a Buyer. However, we cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of the personal data of one User, which we share with another User.
Both Unique Car Auctions and the User receiving personal data are considered separate and independent data controllers of the personal data under applicable data protection laws and regulations. If Unique Car Auctions Europe and a User are found to be joint data controllers of the relevant personal data, and if Unique Car Auctions Europe is sued, fined, or otherwise incurs damages for any shortcomings that can be attributed to that User, the User agrees to indemnify Unique Car Auctions Europe for those damages.
If you receive another User’s personal information, you will process this data in accordance with applicable (data protection) laws and regulations. You guarantee that you will only process this information to perform your obligations, to remedy any issues under or arising from the Contract of Sale, or to meet certain legal obligations. For instance, in some cases you may be required to store certain information to meet your accounting obligations. You may however not use personal data for commercial purposes, for instance by sending unsolicited communications or approaching the User for these purposes. If you violate the provisions of this Article, you are liable for the damages suffered by Unique Car Auctions Europe.
Article 4: Scope of our Services
Unique Car Auctions Europe offers an Online bidding platform where you can bid on, buy, and sell special items (‘Lots’) via our online, computer-UCAsed and automated auctions (‘Online Auction’). We consider everyone who uses our Online Bidding platform a ‘User’ (‘you’). Users who purchase Lots are called ‘Buyers’ and Users who sell Lots are called ‘Sellers’. The use of any Service on our Online bidding platform means that you explicitly consent to Unique Car Auctions providing Services to both the Buyer and the Seller. The scope of our Services is limited in the following ways:
Sellers are responsible for the Lots they sell. We have no control over or responsibility for the quality, safety, lawfulness, or correctness of the Lots. Unique Car Auctions Europe plays only a facilitating and supporting role by offering an Online Bidding platform and supplementary services.
Unique Car Auctions Europe is not a party to the Contract of Sale. Buyers will automatically enter into a purchase agreement (‘Contract of Sale’) with the Seller of a specific Lot for the amount of the highest Bid (the ‘Purchase Price’). There will be no Contract of Sale only if the Seller has set a minimum price (‘Reserve Price’) and the reserve price is not met. Your obligations and rights under the Contract of Sale can be found in the Buyer Terms and/or Seller Terms. Read them carefully.
We charge commission for your use of our Services. We ask a fee for your use of our Services. The Commission for Buyers (‘Buyer’s Commission’) is 5% of the Purchase Price (inclusive of VAT). We will add this amount to the Purchase Price. Sellers have to pay a fee as much as 49 EUR for the Vintage Formula, or 250 euro for the Vintage Plus Formula, both stated & explained on our website under ‘Pricing’. This fee has to be paid before the auction will be put online. All fees include VAT.
We make use of Third-Party Service Providers. Our Online Bidding platform may contain links to third-party websites (‘Third-Party Service Providers’) or we may make use of the supplementary services of Third-Party Service Providers, such as payment services. Your use of such products, services, applications, or websites will be governed by and subject to the terms and conditions and privacy policies of the relevant Third-Party Service Provider.
Article 5: Your Unique Car Auctions Europe account
Before being able to use our Services, you’ll need to create a Unique Car Auctions Europe account (‘Account’). In principle, anyone may register with Unique Car Auctions. However, if you are younger than 18 years, you must get permission from your legal guardian(s). Below you can find the rules related to the use of your Account:
Provide accurate information. When creating your Account you must provide complete, truthful information about yourself or your company. It’s prohibited to use false information or impersonate another person or company through your Account. You need to keep this information up-to-date at all times.
Pick a proper username. If you are able to create a username for your Account, we ask you to pick a username that is not or cannot be considered offensive or vulgar, and does not infringe on the intellectual property rights of third parties or otherwise violate these Terms of Use.
Protect your Account. Keep your username and password combination secret at all times. You alone are responsible for any activity related to your Account. We are entitled to assume that only you can sign in using your username and password.
Restrictions to your Account. To ensure our Online Bidding platform is and remains trustworthy and safe, we reserve the right 1. to deny you the ability to create an Account, 2. to restrict the use of your Account, and 3. to terminate your right to access your Account.
Restrictions to Accounts linked to you. In addition to the above, we may also suspend, restrict, or terminate your use of our Online Bidding platform via any and all Accounts we can link to you. We may assume an Account is related to you or used under your instructions if we can manually or automatically match enough overlapping data points between these different Accounts. Consequently, we may take any of the protective measures listed in the applicable Seller Terms and/or Buyer Terms related to all Accounts we consider to be used by you or used under your instructions. In the event you don’t agree with our findings, you will bear the burden of proof that the relevant Accounts are not connected to you.
If you violate our Terms of Use, you are no longer allowed to register. If we have limited your access or use of our Online Bidding platform in line with our Terms of Use, you are not allowed to register a new Account or access and use our Online Bidding platform through another User’s Account.
Article 7: Use of our Online Bidding platform
Our Services may not be available to Users residing in certain countries. This includes countries where our third party payment providers are not supported or that are not commercially viable to Unique Car Auctions Europe. We are entitled to restrict you from creating an Account, and from bidding or selling on the Online Bidding platform if you reside in a prohibited country. If you reside in a country that is added to the prohibited country list and you have already created an Account, we will inform you about this and restrict our Services to that relevant Account.
Your Unique Car Auctions Europe account is your responsibility and you use our Online Bidding platform at your own risk. The same applies to your use of technical means, such as a computer and an internet connection, when using our Online Bidding platform.
In using our Online Bidding platform, you are obliged to comply with all applicable national, European, and international regulations regarding bidding on, offering up, purchasing and selling Lots via our Online Bidding platform.
You agree not to perform any actions that may put an unreasonable and/or disproportionate strain on the infrastructure of our Online Bidding platform and/or that may hinder the functionality of the Online Bidding platform. You agree not to reverse engineer, try to obtain the source code, use viruses, Trojan horses, worms, bots, or other software or technical tools that can damage the Online Bidding platform, make the Online Bidding platform inaccessible, or circumvent technical protective measures.
Article 8: Your User Material
When using our Online Bidding platform, you can upload certain material, such as descriptions of Lots, photographs, specifications, opinions , messages, offers, and/or announcements (‘User Material’). The following rules apply for any User Material you upload:
You understand and accept that you are responsible and accountable for all User Material you place on our Online Bidding platform.
You acknowledge and agree that the User Material you upload or place on our Online Bidding platform:
Is not misleading, inappropriate, or false
Is not discriminatory in any way or otherwise offensive, does not call for violence against and/or the harassment of another person or other people and, in our opinion, is not in conflict with public morality or good taste, is not violent, does not contain a link to pornographic material or pornographic websites, and does not promote committing illegal activities
Does not consist of chain letters, junk mail, or spam and does not contain links to websites, commercial or otherwise
Cannot have a negative effect on the reputation or good name of Unique Car Auctions Europe and our affiliated companies and/or our directors
Is unencumbered, is not in conflict with any laws or regulations or with these Terms of Use, does not infringe on any rights of third parties, and is not otherwise unlawful towards third parties or Unique Car Auctions Europe
By placing User Material on our Online Bidding platform, you grant Unique Car Auctions Europe a licence to use it. Don’t worry, you will retain all intellectual property rights to your User Material. However, you grant us a free, unencumbered, global, non-exclusive, perpetual, and irrevocable licence to communicate your User Material to the public and/or to reproduce it for all purposes we deem necessary (including promotional purposes).
This licence allows us to promote your Lots and promote our Online Bidding platform in any format and through any channel. Under this licence, we can translate your User Material and promote it on our homepage or in any other promotional material (including social media), with the goal of promoting your business and our Online Bidding platform. Using your User Material helps us to flourish and is therefore beneficial to all of our Users. That’s also why the licence does not end when your Account is deleted or you decide to stop using our Online Bidding platform. You also agree not to assert any moral rights against us for using your User Material.
We are entitled to have the User Material of a particular Lot translated (including through machine translation) so that Lots can also be offered in other countries. We may, at our discretion, dissolve the Contract of Sale on behalf of a User if that User is demonstrably negatively affected by a manual translation error and no other solution for the User is found. If we are informed of an incorrect Lot translation while the Lot is still in auction, we may, at our own discretion, adjust the Lot description or remove the Lot from the auction.
Reporting unlawful or unauthorized content. If you are of the opinion that certain User Material is unlawful, we ask you to report this through our contact form. We are only obliged to remove unmistakably unlawful User Material after receipt of a notice. We may refuse a request to block or remove User Material or discontinue an activity if we have valid reasons to doubt the correctness of the notice or the legitimacy of the evidence submitted.
If we see reason to do so, we are entitled to remove or change User Material from our Online Bidding platform, without being held liable for any damage and without being obliged to pay any compensation.
Article 9: Termination, suspension, and other measures
Termination by you. You may terminate your Account at any time. We have the right to refuse deletion of your Account if you still need to perform certain obligations (such as payment or delivery obligations) towards Unique Car Auctions Europe or other Users or if there is a chance any complaints related to recently sold Lots may still arise.
Termination for convenience by Unique Car Auctions Europe. Without limiting our rights specified below, we may terminate your Account if we are legally required to limit our Services to you or if it’s no longer in our business interest to provide our Services to you.
Termination for cause by Unique Car Auctions Europe. Any violation of these Terms of Use may result in the immediate termination of your Account without any formal requirements (e.g. a notice of default) being necessary.
Suspension of our Services. We are entitled to suspend our Services to you if we have sufficient reason to believe you do not act in accordance with these Terms of Use. To be clear, this means we can suspend your use of any and all Accounts used by you or operated under your instructions.
We may set-off claims. To secure our own rights and those of other Users (e.g. if you breach our Terms of Use), we are entitled, at all times and at our own discretion, to 1. suspend your pay-out or refund, 2. withhold your payment 3. offset any financial claim we might have towards you with a financial claim that you might have towards us. If any of these actions is regulated by mandatory (consumer) law, we may only do so in accordance with such mandatory law.
We may take additional protective measures. In addition to the above, we may take other measures to protect our Online Bidding platform and other Users from infringing, fraudulent, or otherwise inappropriate behavior. Please consult the applicable Seller Terms and/or Buyer Terms for the additional measures we may take.
Article 10: Unique Car Auctions Europe’s Intellectual Property Rights
Any and all intellectual property rights, such as copyright, trademark, and database rights of the Online Bidding platform and our database, including but not limited to the intellectual property rights to the texts, images, design, photos, software, audiovisual material and other material, lie with Unique Car Auctions Europe or our licensors. Subject to the conditions in these Terms of Use, we grant you a limited, personal, revocable, non-exclusive, not (sub)licensable, non-transferable right to use our Online Bidding platform and to view the information in the manner and in the format it is made available via our Online Bidding platform.
Article 11: Availability of our Online Bidding platform
Unique Car Auctions Europe is authorised, at all times and without prior notice, to make procedural, technical, commercial, or other changes and/or improvements to the Online bidding platform. We are also authorised to put the Online bidding platform (temporarily) out of operation and/or to limit use of the Online bidding platform if, in our opinion, this is necessary (e.g. in the context of reasonably necessary maintenance to the Online bidding platform).
Article 12: Warranties and liabilities
We are dedicated to making our Online Bidding platform the best it can be, but we’re not perfect and sometimes things can go wrong. You understand that our Service is provided ‘as is’ and without any kind of warranty (express or implied).
We do not guarantee that 1. the Online Bidding platform will be secure or available at any particular time or location, 2. any defects or errors will be corrected, 3. the Online Bidding platform will be free of viruses or other harmful materials, or 4. the results of using the Online Bidding platform will meet your expectations.
If, at any time, our Online Bidding platform is unavailable or any defects or errors occur, we are, at our own discretion, entitled to take any measures we deem appropriate or necessary. These measures include but are not limited to: removing Lots from Online Auctions, cancelling transactions, and dissolving Contracts of Sale on behalf of Users. When we make decisions around this, we will always take into account the interests of all parties concerned.
What we cannot be held liable for.
In so far as is permitted by mandatory law, we accept no liability whatsoever for damages resulting from:
The provision of our Services, including but not limited to damages resulting from or in connection with your use of the Online Bidding platform or from wrongful acts or otherwise
The conclusion, performance (this includes the delivery of Lots), and/or dissolution of a Contract of Sale by a Buyer or Seller
The cancellation of a transaction by Unique Car Auctions Europe or dissolution of a Contract of Sale by Unique Car Auctions Europe on behalf of a User
Any errors in the text as a result of machine translations
User Material (such as photographs and the description of Lots)
Unlawful use of the Online Bidding platform
Your use of the services of Third Party Service Providers
Technical problems or other errors of our Online Bidding platform
Limitation of liability. If, despite the above, Unique Car Auctions Europe is liable for any damages for any reason whatsoever, we are only liable for the compensation of direct damages you suffer as a result of a shortcoming or wrongful act that can be attributed to us. Direct damages only include material damage to goods, reasonable costs incurred to prevent or limit direct damage, and reasonable costs incurred to determine the cause of the damage, the liability, the direct damage and the manner of repair. If Unique Car Auctions Europe is liable for damages for any reason whatsoever, our liability is limited to the highest of the following amounts: 1. the total commission we’ve received from the Buyer in question in the period of three months prior to the action that led to liability or 2. € 500 (five hundred euros). This limitation of liability does not exclude our liability for gross negligence or willful misconduct committed by Unique Car Auctions Europe and/or our management.
Report a damages claim in time. You have to report any damages to us in writing as soon as possible after the first appearance of the damages. Each claim for compensation against Unique Car Auctions Europe expires four (4) months after the first appearance of the damages.
This limitation period of four (4) months also applies if we need to pay out or refund you but you have not sent us the required contact, personal, and/or bank information to do so, after we’ve requested it (at least once) by mail or phone. In those situations, the limitation period will start from the moment 1. the claim became due and payable or 2. the Contract of Sale was dissolved by us on behalf of a User.
Article 13: Indemnification
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, you are liable to fully indemnify us against claims from other Users or third parties and all damages and costs Unique Car Auctions Europe suffers or incurs as a result of 1. your failure to perform the Terms of Use, 2. any improper actions during the use of our Online bidding platform, 3. your breach of any laws, regulations, or third party rights, or 4. a wrongful act. The obligations for indemnification in this Article also apply to any companies affiliated with Unique Car Auctions Europe as well as our management, directors, employees, representatives, and legal successors.
Article 14: Disputes with other Users
We expect Users to resolve any dispute between themselves. However, if necessary, Unique Car Auctions Europe will make reasonable efforts to mediate between the Seller and the Buyer.
Any complaints and disputes between the Seller and the Buyer must therefore be reported to us as quickly as possible. We will attempt to help you resolve the dispute in good faith and in line with our Terms of Use.
Even with our support, it’s possible that disputes may not reach a satisfactory conclusion. If this happens, you agree that we can decide to either refund the commission to the Buyer or the Seller. Of course, we base our decision on all relevant information available and take into account any possible agreements made between Buyer and Seller. We want to clarify that our decision has no effect on the validity of the Contract of Sale. Despite the decision we reach, the Buyer and Seller are free to obtain their rights under or discuss their claim related to the Contract of Sale amongst themselves. However, we cannot be held liable to pay any damages or other compensation to the Buyer or the Seller if they don’t agree with our decision.
If Users decide to dissolve the Contract of Sale amongst each other and without the mediation of Unique Car Auctions Europe, the Users forfeit the right to receive a refund of the relevant Buyer and/or Seller Commission.
All Contracts of Sale between Sellers and Buyers, are governed by Belgian law. However, you acknowledge that international private law may result in laws other than Belgian law being applicable to the Contract of Sale entered into by Users.
Article 15: Disputes with Unique Car Auctions Europe
If you’re unhappy with our Services, let us know and we’ll try to resolve your issue. In the unfortunate situation we can’t find a solution, the following rules will govern any legal dispute between you and Unique Car Auctions Europe:
These Terms of Use, the use of our Online Bidding platform, and any disputes that arise from this are governed by Belgian law, unless otherwise stipulated in mandatory law.
All disputes that arise between you and Unique Car Auctions Europe will be submitted to the competent court in the district of Antwerpen, unless mandatory law stipulates that the dispute must be submitted to another court. With regard to consumers, disputes must be submitted to the competent court in the district of Antwerpen, unless the consumer chooses a court that is competent according to law within one month after Unique Car Auctions Europe has invoked this provision in writing.
Even though we’d like to solve any issues ourselves, we want you to know that you can also submit a complaint to an authority for extrajudicial dispute resolution (see the website of the ODR Platform for more information).
Report any claim for performance in time. If you believe we’ve failed to fulfill our obligations under the Agreement, you must report a claim for performance against us as soon as possible. Each claim for performance expires twelve (12) months after the moment it becomes claimable.
Article 16: Changing these Terms of Use
We may amend or supplement the Terms of Use at any time by posting the amended Terms of Use on our Online Bidding platform. If an amendment or supplementation will significantly affect your rights or obligations, we’ll notify you by email or bring the changes to your attention during your use of our Online Bidding platform.
If you continue to use our Online Bidding platform after the Terms of Use have been amended or supplemented, you irrevocably accept the amended or supplemented Terms of Use. If you do not wish to accept the amended or supplemented Terms of Use, you are free to stop using the Online Bidding platform and delete your Account.
Unique Car Auctions Europe may transfer rights and obligations that follow from these Terms of Use to third parties and we will inform you if this happens. If you do not find the transfer of obligations to a third party acceptable, you can discontinue using the Online Bidding platform and delete your Account, subject to applicability of Article 9.
Article 17: Survival
If any provision(s) in these Terms of Use is/are void or invalid in whole or in part for any reason, the User and Unique Car Auctions Europe remain bound by the remaining Terms of Use. We will replace the void and/or invalid part (with regard to the specific User or specific situation) by provisions that are valid. These new provisions will have legal consequences that are in line with the invalid provisions as much as possible, based on the contents and object of these Terms of Use.
Article 18: Contact us
For questions about our Online Bidding platform or these Terms of Use, you can contact us via the contact form on our website.
Unique Car Auctions