# Auction Rules & Guidelines



## dizzy bone

If you are planning on holding an auction on the forums, please make sure you follow our Rules and Guidelines for auctions. Any auction thread that fails to adhere to these rules may be closed. Our rules for auctions are as follows:

*Auction Rules*
​Our auction guidelines apply to auctions of items and villagers in Animal Crossing, as well as auctions in the TBT Marketplace and Museum Shop boards. They are designed to keep auctions fair for both buyers and sellers, yet also give auctioneers freedom to create their own rules.​​Rules for an auction must be clearly set and followed by both the bidder and auctioneer. Only bids posted in the auction thread may be accepted, even if custom rules are set by the auctioneer. As an auctioneer, if you wish to reserve special rights, specify your reason for doing so in your original post before bidding begins. Otherwise, the auction should follow all of the rules listed below by default.​
Bidders are subject to accept all rules posted by the auctioneer. If a bidder disagrees with special rights reserved by the auctioneer, he or she should not participate.
Auctioneers may only accept bids that are posted in the auction thread. *No PM, VM, Discord bids or bids from outside platforms may be accepted. *
*Auctions posted on The Bell Tree should not also be made on another site*. Not only does this waste the bidders' time, they should not be required to check another site for bidding purposes.
*The end time of the auction must be clearly stated and should not be increased or decreased after it has already started.*
All bids must be placed before the specified minute of the end time starts. For example, in an auction that ends at 6:00, only posts that display a timestamp of 5:59 or before should be counted. The edit time should be used for bids made on edited posts.
The last person to bid on an auction within the scope of its rules and time limits is the winner. Auctioneers cannot choose another winner even if someone else makes a better offer after the auction ends.
*Auctioneers are expected to see their auctions through to the end. *Unless valid reasoning is provided, an auction cannot be canceled. Otherwise, the auction winner may give the host negative feedback for failing to complete the sale.
*Winners are obligated to complete the purchase after they are determined to be the winner. *If he or she backs out of the transaction, the auctioneer may leave negative feedback.
Bid retractions are not allowed except under extraordinary circumstances.

Furthermore, [Selling] threads should either have a clear selling price or, if the seller asks for offers, the seller should be upfront about accepting or declining an offer presented to them in a timely manner. Any selling thread that is held in an *auction format* is still considered an auction and should abide by our auction rules. This means if a selling thread has users bidding against each other to offer the highest price for something then it is classed as an auction.


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