Private sales

The declaration covers the date, the segment, the price range, the country of the seller and of the buyer and the OIMAP number of the work if one exists. The names of the parties are not passed to third parties and are kept only for checks.

It is made through the Desk within ninety days of the sale, as a guide. Failure to declare is taken into account when the approval is renewed.

Each quarter, the OIMAP publishes statistics: number of sales, price ranges, breakdown by segment and region. No data makes it possible to identify a work or a party.

These data feed the market report and are used for trend analysis by researchers and professionals.

Even when confidential, a private sale must comply with due diligence: documented provenance, no BIOP alert, export licences if the work crosses a border. Auction houses are required to apply these checks and to keep their supporting documents for ten years.

In the event of an alert, the OIMAP may ask the auction house to produce the documents, in confidence, to its authorised agents only.

Private sales are sometimes used to conceal the origin of an object. The duty to declare, the aggregation of data and the oversight of auction houses limit this risk while respecting the legitimacy of commercial confidentiality.

Breaches found give rise to graduated measures: warning, formal notice, suspension of approval.

Buyers and sellers are well advised to go through an approved auction house, which guarantees the verification of provenance and the retention of documents. A written contract specifying the condition of the object and the warranties is recommended.

Obtaining the provenance certificate from the OIMAP makes later resale of the work easier.