Frequently asked questions

What kind of real estate property works best at auction?

Any residential / commercial real astate property. Domus Optima Real Estate Auctions may be the best choice to sell your primary residence, investment property, vacant property or a property that is unique or difficult to appraise. We may also help our clients in different unforeseen life situations, such as estate settlements, divorce settlements or business liquidations. Institutional, corporate or private lenders as well as municipalities may benefit from our specifically tailored services to auction all kinds of real estate properties that are in a state of foreclosure, financial or other distress.

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Who can sell real estate property at Domus Optima Real Estate Auctions?

Any legal owner of the property or a duly authorised representative.

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Why should I consider selling my property at Domus Optima Real Estate Auctions?

You may consider listing at Domus Optima Real Estate Auctions to accelerate the sale of your property by generating additional interest and activity of the potential buyers due to innovative auction approach to the sale process. In addition, the property will be sold on an “as-is” basis with a pre-defined non-contingent agreement along with non-refundable deposit and pre-set closing date.

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How much is the Domus Optima Membership?

Domus Optima Membership is free and provides full lifetime access to the Members Area of our website with Domus Optima Real Estate Auction listings and services.

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How to register for a complimentary Domus Optima Membership?

To register for a complimentary Domus Optima Membership, please:

  • Visit our Members Area registration page.
  • Fill out the registration form to initially set up your account. Your username should be at least 5, but maximum 12 characters long. Your password should be at least 12 characters long. To make it stronger, use upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols like ! ” ? $ % ^ &.
  • Read our Privacy Policy carefully to get a clear understanding of how we collect, use, protect or otherwise handle your personal data. We also encourage you to review our other legal information, including, but not limited to: Terms of Use, Cancellation & Refund Policy, and Cookie Policy.
  • Perform Google reCAPTCHA check and submit your registration form.
  • Upon successful submission of the registration form, you should receive 2 emails from Domus Optima: confirmation of your Members account registration and activation request with a verification link to activate your account. Do not forget to click the activation link in the account activation request message. Otherwise, you will not be able to log in and you will not receive any of our future emails.

PLEASE NOTE:

  • Please choose your username wisely. Do not use the one which may be offensive or disruptive to other Domus Optima Members.
  • Make sure there are no unwanted characters or spelling mistakes in your username, first and last names while filling out the registration form as you will NOT be able to change them later.
  • We recommend that you add to your address book and/or contacts, and/or approved/safe sender list within your email application to ensure uninterrupted email delivery.
  • If you do not receive our confirmation and/or activation request message(s) within a few minutes of signing up, please make sure that you typed your email correctly and check your other inbox folders such as Junk, Spam, Bulk and Promotions just in case our email(s) got delivered there instead of your main inbox. If so, select the confirmation and/or activation request message(s) and click Not Junk or Not Spam, which will allow future messages from Domus Optima to get through.
  • Never share your Domus Optima Members account password with anyone. Domus Optima will never ask you to provide your password via email, phone, SMS, etc.
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I am a licensed real estate agent. How do I register for a complimentary Domus Optima EMERALD or DIAMOND Membership?

To register for a complimentary Domus Optima EMERALD Membership, please:

  1. Log into your existing Domus Optima Members account or register for this complimentary membership if you haven’t obtained it yet.
  2. Activate Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for your account if your haven’t done it yet.
  3. Take your real estate career to the new heights by upgrading to an Emerald Domus Optima Membership:

To upgrade, simply visit the Available Upgrades section of My Account, select the complimentary Emerald Domus Optima Membership, and complete the straightforward application process.

We process all Emerald Domus Optima Membership applications once a day, so if approved, you will be notified within the same or the next business day.

PLEASE NOTE:

  • We may contact you if any additional information is required to proceed with your application. That may delay the process of your membership upgrade.
  • Complimentary Domus Optima Diamond Membership will be automatically granted to you upon your first auction listing. 
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Why should I register for an auction?

Registration for Domus Optima Real Estate Auctions is mandatory. Registration does not obligate you to bid / participate in the auction, but it establishes you as a bidder within that auction. The information provided at registration is used in strict conformity with our Privacy Policy for verification purposes and to begin the settlement process should you be the auction winner.

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How to register for an auction?

 Registration for Domus Optima Real Estate Auction is mandatory and generally opens at the same time when the property’s auction listing becomes available for Domus Optima Members. The deadline to complete your registration, requirements and the registration link is posted in each property listing. All Domus Optima Real Estate Auctions will require an Auction Administrative Fee amount (stated in the auction listing) pre-authorisation or pre-payment.

Registration link will bring you to the corresponding payment page for either your Auction Administrative Fee amount pre-authorisation or pre-payment, as a part of the Domus Optima Real Estate Auction registration process. Please proceed to check out and provide all the requested information.

Auction Administrative Fee is waived for all non-winning bidders. Pre-authorisations or pre-payments of the non-winning bidders will be cancelled and released / refunded after the auction end accordingly. In addition, the Auction Administrative Fee is waived for the auction winner upon successful closing on the auctioned real estate property or upon call off of the closing by the seller. Pre-authorisation or pre-payment of the Auction Administrative Fee previously provided by the auction winner will also be cancelled and released / refunded in these cases. The actual charge of the Auction Administrative Fee will only occur in case of the auction winner’s breach of the contractual obligations.

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What is “due diligence”?

Due diligence is the process of gathering information about the condition and legal status of the property (property information package, appraisal, inspection, etc.).
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Does “as-is” mean that the seller doesn’t need to disclose any known defects?

The seller should offer full disclosure in accordance with the current laws and regulations. “As-is” simply means that the seller is not offering to make any additional improvements to the property and the buyer is bidding on and buying it in the condition it is in at the time of the auction.
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What is a “Starting Bid” at Domus Optima Real Estate Auctions?

Domus Optima Real Estate Auction system considers a Starting Bid or an Opening Bid as a pre-determined and published price at which the real estate auction bidding starts (the least amount a bidder is allowed to bid).
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What is a “Reserve Price” at Domus Optima Real Estate Auctions?

Some of Domus Optima Real Estate Auctions provide an option to set a Reserve Price (Type R and Type S). Reserve Price is the minimum price the seller will accept. This price is hidden from the auction bidders. To win, a bidder must have the highest bid at or above the Reserve Price.
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How do I remove a bid once I have placed it?

Online bidding is done in real time and the removal of the bid would affect other buyers. Therefore, there is absolutely NO way to remove a bid once it is confirmed. The decision on bidding should be made prior to submitting your bid to the auction website.
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What is “Fair Market Value”?

Fair Market Value is the price at which property would change hands between a willing buyer and a willing seller, neither being under the compulsion to buy or under compulsion to sell, and both having reasonable knowledge of relevant facts.
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What is a “Buyer’s Premium”?

A Buyer’s Premium is an additional charge (percentage) on the winning bid at an auction that must be paid by the winner. The Buyer’s Premium is charged by the auctioneer as a remuneration and is subject to GST/HST. The majority of Domus Optima Real Estate Auctions has 0% Buyer’s Premium. Please check the listing of a property of your interest prior to bidding for the information on the Buyer’s Premium.
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Can I place bids on behalf of another person or company?

At the moment we allow bidding / buying at the Domus Optima Real Estate Auctions in your sole name and in joint names (with your future co-owner) only. To place bids in joint names you should:

    • receive a lawful consent for bidding from your future co-owner prior to registration for the auction; and
    • provide his / her contact details upon registration for the auction; and
    • provide his / her government-issued photo ID in case of the auction winning.
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How to use two-factor authentication (2FA) to protect my account?

Using two-factor authentication (2FA) is an essential security measure to protect your members account with Domus Optima Real Estate Auctions from unauthorized access.

2FA strengthens access security to your account by requiring two methods (also referred to as authentication factors) to verify your identity. These factors include something you know – your username and password – plus something you have – your smartphone / tablet application – to approve authentication requests.

It’s easy to set up 2FA for your Domus Optima Real Estate Auctions account. Just follow these steps and you’ll be protected in no time:

  1. Choose an authenticator application to use, if you do not already have one installed on your smartphone or tablet. There are many available for iOS, Android, and other platforms, including Google Authenticator, FreeOTP Authenticator, Sophos Mobile Security, 1Password, LastPass Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, Authy 2-Factor Authentication or any other authenticator app that supports Time-Based One-Time Passwords (TOTP).
  2. Log in to your Domus Optima Members Account using your username and password.
  3. Choose Login Security section of My Account from a menu to the left.
  4. Open your smartphone / tablet authenticator application and add a new entry. Most apps have a plus sign symbol or a tiny QR code symbol.
  5. Scan the QR code on our Login Security page with your smartphone / tablet. If you are accessing Domus Optima Real Estate Auctions website on your smartphone or tablet and obviously cannot point the camera at its own screen, you can copy the line of letters and numbers below the QR code from the Login Security page and paste that in an application, using the application’s “manual” setup option.
  6. Your authenticator application should then display a six-digit code.
  7. You may wish to download and / or print Recovery Codes (can be used if you lose your smartphone or tablet) from the Login Security page. Store downloaded and / or printed Recovery Codes in a safe place.
  8. Enter the six-digit code that appears in your authenticator application into the appropriate field of the Login Security page to verify and activate two-factor authentication for your members account. This code changes every 60 seconds. If the code expires, you can enter the next code instead.
  9. Click the “ACTIVATE” button.
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How to use 2FA Recovery Codes?

The Recovery Codes that you saved or printed during the initial 2FA setup can be used if you ever lose your authenticator device (smartphone or tablet), if you remove the application, or you remove your site’s entry by mistake. Make sure that you store these codes in a safe place.

Because they do not expire, recovery codes are longer than normal codes.  They are 16 letters and numbers instead of only 6 numbers, but each code can only be used once. An example recovery code looks like: 5199 5c24 77dc 0ed7.

The log in process is the same as using a code from an authenticator application:

  1. Enter your username and password and press the “Log In”.
  2. When the “2FA Code” prompt appears, enter a recovery code.
  3. Remember, recovery codes are longer than regular two-factor authentication codes.
  4. In this example, we would enter 5199 5c24 77dc 0ed7.
  5. Press the “Log In” button.

Each recovery code can only be used once. You can generate new recovery codes on the Login Security page of My Account section of Domus Optima Real Estate Auctions website. This is useful if you have used most of your codes, or if you lose the codes you previously saved or printed. Generating new codes will invalidate the previous codes.

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