What buyer protection covers

Six per cent of the price, capped at £35, and already inside the figure you see.

The heart of it

When you buy, we take the payment and it is held — by our payment provider, never in our own account. The seller does not see a penny until the work reaches you and fourteen days have passed.

You are covered for three things

It never arrives. Full refund, including delivery and this fee.
It was damaged in transit. Full refund, or keep it with a part refund if the damage is slight and you would still like it.
It is not what it was described as. A print sold as an original, a reissue sold as an original printing, a size or condition that does not match.

You have fourteen days from delivery for any of them — the same fortnight we hold the seller's money for, so a refund never depends on anybody paying us back.

And one more, without a clock on it. If a work you bought here is reclaimed by a rightful owner or established to have been stolen, you are refunded in full however long ago you bought it. In law a thief passes no title, however honestly you bought — so that one is not something we were willing to put behind a deadline.

What it does not cover

Changing your mind, and condition you could see in the photographs. These are private sales between individuals, so there is no cooling-off period — buy as though you were standing in front of it. Wear, marks, foxing and a tired frame are part of an old thing, not faults in it. Where there is something worth knowing we say so on the listing under Sold as seen.

What it costs

6% of the price, capped at £35. So £3.90 on a £65 watercolour, £24 on a £400 oil, and never more than £35 however much you spend — anything above £584 carries the same £35.

You will not see it added at checkout, because it is already inside the price on the listing. We would rather show you one honest number at the start than a smaller one that grows.

For comparison, an auction house adds a buyer's premium of 25 to 30% on top of the hammer price.

We ask for proof

If you tell us something is not as described, we ask for a photograph — normally a close-up of the surface. A printing press leaves a regular dot pattern; paint never does. That single photograph settles almost every case, in either direction, and it means an honest claim is resolved in hours rather than argued over for weeks.

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