What protects the buyer and the seller on CoArt Market
Dimitri Sloboda, Founder, CoArt Market · 21 October 2026 · 8 min read
The buyer pays on the payment provider's page. The price goes to the seller's account with the payment provider and stays frozen there until Closing, the moment the sale completes. The seller hands the object over within 72 hours of the payment. When delivery is confirmed, the buyer has 48 hours to accept the object or to make one claim. This article walks through each step, with the numbers as they stand in the Terms of Use.
A sale between two private persons, as it is
On CoArt Market, objects are bought and sold by private persons. CoArt Market itself sells nothing. A seller states, once, in their Seller Declaration, that they sell their own object outside any business. At checkout, the buyer is told that the seller is a private person.
A seller may also act for another private person under a power of attorney. Then that person's surname, name and date of birth go into the sale agreement of that object, and nowhere else. The object can be put up for sale and the agreement signed before the power of attorney is given, but Closing waits until a CoArt Market administrator has accepted it.
The buyer buys the object as it is, on its gallery files and its documents. That is why the object's page shows the documents that passed review, and says whether the object has a digital fingerprint. Before the certificate was created, a person at CoArt Market reviewed those files and checked that the object is not an obvious fake.
The price waits for Closing
The buyer pays on the payment provider's own page, by one of the methods offered there: payment cards, digital wallets and local payment methods. PayPal opens soon. The price is set in euro. On the provider's page the buyer can pay in their own currency at the provider's rate; the conversion is the buyer's cost. While the buyer pays, the object is held for them for 15 minutes.
Once the payment is confirmed, it has the status PAYMENT_HELD and the object is RESERVED: nobody else can buy it. The price, less CoArt Market's fee, is credited to the seller's account with the payment provider and is frozen there. It cannot be paid out before Closing. CoArt Market does not hold client funds as a bank or a payment institution.
A buyer who wants to pay less can make an offer. An offer stands for 14 days, and nothing is charged for it. The owner accepts it, declines it or answers with a counter-price; nobody may accept it for the owner, not even an employee of CoArt Market. If the owner accepts, the buyer has 24 hours to pay. Accepting one offer closes the others with the words Sold to another buyer.
72 hours to hand the object over
The seller hands the object over within 72 hours of the payment. How it is packed and handed over depends on the carrier and on the object's size and value. It is agreed with the seller for each sale. A courier may collect it, the seller may hand it to the carrier, or bring it to CoArt Market's office to be packed there. The order page says what to do and where to write.
Where the object needs an export permit, the seller obtains it before the handover, and the 72 hours run from the day the permit is obtained. In exceptional cases, a CoArt Market administrator may extend the period, with the agreement of both the seller and the buyer, for that sale alone.
If the seller does not hand the object over in time, the buyer may withdraw from the sale and gets back everything paid: the price, the delivery and the insurance. The period itself cancels nothing; a person does.
Delivery and insurance: one line, paid by the buyer
Before paying, the buyer sees the price and one more line: Delivery and insurance. CoArt Market delivers the object with its own courier, standard or express as the buyer chooses, and the price of delivery is set by the country of delivery. The line combines two amounts — the cost of delivery and the cost of insurance for the period of delivery. The buyer pays it with the price. CoArt Market receives that amount for the delivery; none of it is the seller's money.
For an object above €4,000 — a unique or valuable object that parcel rates do not suit — the delivery and its insurance for the period of delivery are calculated separately. Once the price is paid, CoArt Market asks carriers of valuable objects for a quote to the buyer's address and sends it within 3 business days. The buyer pays it within 48 hours, or withdraws from the sale and gets back everything paid. Until the buyer has paid the delivery, the seller's 72 hours do not start.
The object travels insured for the period of delivery. Customs clearance, import duties, taxes of the country of delivery and permits for import are the buyer's. They are not part of the delivery line.
48 hours: accept the object, or make one claim
When the courier reports delivery, a CoArt Market administrator confirms it, and CoArt Market writes to the buyer. From that moment, the buyer has 48 hours. In those 48 hours the buyer accepts the object on the order page, or makes one claim: this is not the object shown. If neither comes, the object counts as accepted and Closing follows.
There is no other ground for a claim through CoArt Market. Taste, quality and the description are not grounds: the object was bought as it is, on its gallery files and documents.
Where the object has a digital fingerprint, the order page opens a step called Identify your object. The buyer sees the map and the close-ups recorded in the certificate, photographs each place on the object that arrived, and the comparison program says whether it matches. It counts the details of the surface that line up; 24 are enough. The comparison confirms one thing: that the buyer received the object shown.
If the buyer claims that this is not the object shown, a CoArt Market specialist decides the claim, with what the comparison program found. Where the object has no fingerprint, the buyer writes the claim in words, and a CoArt Market administrator decides it. While a claim is being decided, the 48 hours stand still.
What is refunded, and to whom
If the object does not match, the sale is cancelled. The buyer gets back the price and the delivery line. The object goes back to the seller with CoArt Market's courier, packed and insured for the way back, and that cost is the seller's.
If the seller misses the 72 hours and the buyer withdraws, or if a required export permit is finally refused, the buyer gets back everything paid: the price, the delivery and the insurance.
If the object arrives damaged, the buyer writes to CoArt Market within the 48 hours. Damage on the road is an insured event under the insurance the buyer paid for in the delivery line. Where the damage is the carrier's fault, the sale is cancelled, the buyer gets back the price, and the seller receives the insurance compensation from the carrier.
In every case where the sale is cancelled before Closing, CoArt Market's fee is returned with the price.
The seller's side
CoArt Market's fee is 10% of the price, paid by the seller, and only on a sale that completes. Putting an object up for sale costs nothing. The certificate costs nothing.
The seller sets the price in euro. When the buyer pays, the price less 10% is credited to the seller's account with the payment provider and stays frozen there until Closing. So the money is on the seller's account with the provider before the seller hands the object over — and it cannot leave before Closing.
After Closing, the payment provider pays it to the bank account the seller gave the provider. Outside the euro area, in the seller's currency at the provider's rate. CoArt Market does not promise a number of days.
The buyer's claim is one: not the object shown. Where the object has a digital fingerprint, a claim is decided on the comparison with the close-ups recorded before the sale, not on words. If the buyer is silent for 48 hours, the object counts as accepted.
What is public is the name of the seller's profile, the price and the date of each sale, in the object's provenance ledger. The seller's full name and date of birth are only in the sale agreement, which the buyer receives after paying. The public copy of the Seller Declaration carries no name, no e-mail and no IP address. Legal names and contact details are not published.
Whoever buys an object on CoArt Market can sell it there later, from their own showroom, on the same terms, with the same certificate and no new review. Buyers and sellers have equal rights.
What CoArt Market does not do
CoArt Market does not hold the buyer's money. The payment provider does, on the seller's account, frozen until Closing. CoArt Market is not a bank and not a payment institution.
CoArt Market does not give a 14-day right of withdrawal. That right exists against a trader, and on CoArt Market the seller is a private person. The buyer is told this at checkout.
CoArt Market does not confirm authenticity. The seller presents the evidence of authenticity and answers for it; a person at CoArt Market reviews it before the certificate is created, and the certificate keeps what passed review. The comparison on delivery confirms identity only: that the object received is the object shown.
CoArt Market gives no advice to seek an expertise. The object is bought as it is, on its gallery files and the documents that passed review, and the claim after delivery is one.
Between the payment and the payout stand 72 hours to hand the object over, an insured delivery, and 48 hours in which the buyer accepts the object or makes one claim. Nothing is paid out before Closing.