Understanding foreclosure auctions — step by step

The guide to your first compulsory auction: in 8 steps from finding a property to financing, the security deposit and the award.

You buy with no warranty and often without an interior inspection. What to check in the appraisal, the land register and the occupancy before you bid.

Your bank sets your bid limit. Security is due on request of a party to the proceedings. Prepare financing and security before the hearing.

A party to the proceedings usually demands 10% of the market value as security. No cash: a timely bank transfer, bank cheque or bank guarantee is accepted.

If you bid for someone else, even your spouse, you need a publicly certified bidding authorisation. Without it at the hearing, your bid is rejected.

How an auction hearing runs: the call, the lowest admissible bid, at least 30 minutes of bidding time, bidding with ID. The award makes you owner at once.

The 5/10 and 7/10 thresholds lapse at a new hearing only after refusal of the award on a value-threshold ground. A second hearing alone is not enough.

With the award you become owner. Plan payment, interest and taxes. Review tenancies, surviving rights and current charges owed to the owners' association.

The procedure is identical nationwide. The one major difference is the real estate transfer tax (3.5% to 6.5%). All 16 state rates and what else varies.

ZVG Melder detects risk findings from official appraisals, structures them into classes and shows how strong the data basis is.

Official source and eleven private portals compared: cost, hearings visible without an account, appraisal, saved searches, maps. Checked on 5 October 2026.

Partition auctions in divorce or inheritance cases: the § 180 ZVG procedure, when it can be stopped and what buyers should look for.

Where local courts officially publish auction dates, what the announcement contains and how to see a court's hearings in one place.