Failed auction: how much the price drops and when it pays to wait

An auction is failed (deserta) when, at the deadline, there is no effective bid. This also covers bids that were submitted but excluded, for example because they were below the minimum bid, arrived late, had a deposit not credited, or came from an agent who was not admitted. On the Public Sales Portal (Portale delle Vendite Pubbliche, PVP), "failed" (deserta) and "not awarded" (non aggiudicata) are two distinct outcomes. In both cases the lot reappears later with a new notice and a new price.

The case of a bid that exists but is not accepted is different. It happens when the bid is below the starting price and there are assignment requests, or when the delegate sees a serious prospect of selling for more (art. 572). Formally the auction is not failed, although for the bidder the result is the same. The rules are in the guide to the minimum bid.

This guide concerns real estate enforcement proceedings. In judicial liquidation (liquidazione giudiziale, formerly bankruptcy), the rules on reductions, sale attempts and vacating are set by the liquidation program (art. 216 CCII). Notarial auctions run by public bodies follow the terms of their notice (see notarial auctions).

After a sale attempt with no sale, the judge, or the delegate within the limits of the delegation, has three options.

The first is assignment (assegnazione). If a creditor filed its request at least ten days before the hearing, the property goes to that creditor, for itself or in favor of a third party. The price cannot be lower than the starting price of that attempt (arts. 588, 589 and 590-bis c.p.c.), and the third party's name must be given within five days.

The second, and the most common, is a new sale attempt. Art. 591 allows "different sale conditions and different forms of publicity" and a lower starting price, up to one quarter less than the previous one. After the fourth attempt has failed, the reduction can reach half.

The third is rare. The judge may place the property under judicial administration (arts. 592 et seq.). Or the judge may order a sale by open bidding (vendita con incanto), but only if it considers it likely that the open bidding will bring a price more than half above the appraised value.

The quarter is a ceiling, not an automatic rule. The judge may reduce less, and the delegation order tells the delegate how to proceed without returning to the judge each time. The table shows a lot appraised at €200,000 to which the maximum reduction is applied each time. At the first attempt, the starting price is usually the appraised value, sometimes rounded.

The minimum bid at 75% applies in real estate enforcement proceedings (art. 571 c.p.c.). In insolvency proceedings and tax collection sales, the notice sets the rule, and the minimum bid may equal the starting price.

At the fifth round, a property appraised at €200,000 can be bought for under €50,000. It looks like a bargain. But four failed auctions in a row usually have a cause, and that is the first thing to find out.

For proceedings where seizure was served after February 28, 2023, the law sets a minimum. With the delegation order, the judge orders at least three sale attempts within one year (art. 591-bis, first paragraph, c.p.c.). For earlier proceedings the previous rules and the judge's order apply. There is no maximum number. How many more attempts, with what reductions, and when to send the file back to the judge is set by the order.

The delegation order template of the Ancona court is one example. It provides for 25% reductions "until assignment of the property or until reaching ¼ of the appraised value", after which the file goes back to the judge. In our example the threshold is €50,000. The fifth attempt starts at €63,281; another 25% reduction would bring the price to €47,461, below the threshold. At that point the delegate sends the file back to the judge.

An order of the Brescia court from 2025 goes beyond the legal minimum in another way. After a fourth failed attempt, the judge may authorize a fifth with a 30% reduction. If that one also fails, the court weighs whether to continue or close.

Early closure for lack of viable proceeds is governed by art. 164-bis of the implementing provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure (disp. att. c.p.c.). The judge declares it when it is no longer possible to obtain a reasonable satisfaction of the creditors, taking into account costs, the chances of a sale and the realizable value. With closure, the judge orders the cancellation of the registration of the seizure, and the lot leaves the auctions. The credit and the mortgage remain, however, so the same property can be put up for sale again with a new seizure. Each court applies the rule with its own criteria, often linked to how far the price has fallen from the appraisal.

When it sets new conditions or a new price, the judge allows between 60 and 90 days for bids (art. 591). Before that deadline the notice must be published on the Public Sales Portal. Art. 490 c.p.c. requires a notice period of at least 45 days for websites. For the PVP, the notice period is set by the order: an order of the Brescia court and the Locri notice template also require 45 days there. The Ancona template requires setting the new attempt within 90 days of the failed hearing. Several months therefore pass between one attempt and the next, and with the delegate's schedule, publicity and suspensions it can sometimes be much longer.

After a failed auction the lot is not on sale. In real estate enforcement proceedings you cannot submit an offer "outside the auction" to the delegate while waiting for the new notice: bids count only within the deadlines of a sale attempt. In judicial liquidation the rules are different: what to do with an offer that arrives outside a sale attempt is decided by the liquidation program and the trustee.

The most common causes are those that the appraisal and the notice already point to.

• The starting price is out of line with the market. The valuation dates from two or three years earlier, in an area where prices have stalled, or the appraiser used optimistic values.
• The property is occupied and it is unclear when it will be vacated: a buyer who wants to live there cannot wait indefinitely.
• There are building violations, cadastral discrepancies or restrictions that the appraisal describes without quantifying them well.
• A share is being sold (for example, half of a house co-owned with a relative of the debtor) or bare ownership only.
• The lot is difficult by nature: ruins, fragmented farmland, commercial premises in areas with no foot traffic.
• Publicity or viewings did not work. The custodian does not answer, the photos are three and dark, the appraisal is a crooked scanned PDF.

The first five causes remain after a reduction. The last one, however, can hide an opportunity: an ordinary property with badly written documents that nobody has looked at carefully.

Sometimes yes, as long as you understand the risks.

Everyone shows up at the reduction. A starting price down 25% attracts people who were not interested before, and bidding can bring the price back to where it was. The more ordinary the property, the more likely this is.

There is assignment. A creditor, for example the bank, can request assignment at the next attempt and take the property at the starting price. If you had planned to bid below the starting price, that route is closed.

The debtor can still settle the matter. Conversion of the seizure is no longer possible, because it must be requested before the sale is ordered (art. 495 c.p.c.). However, if the debtor pays or reaches an agreement with the creditors, the enforcing creditor and the creditors who intervened with an enforceable title can waive the proceedings (art. 629 c.p.c.). Or all creditors with a title can request a suspension of up to 24 months, with the request filed within 20 days before the bid deadline (art. 624-bis). The lot then disappears, or stays frozen for months.

There is closure. If the price has fallen a long way, the judge may close the proceedings as unproductive (chiusura per infruttuosità).

Work out your maximum price from the real market value, minus costs and risks: the method is in the guides on how much it costs to bid and on starting price and market value. If today's minimum bid is already below that price, waiting for another 25% means betting that nobody else does the same calculation.

On ImmobilScan you search auctions by area, price and category, and open each listing, with the public documents and its position on the map. With an account you can also see the attempt history of the same lot, with the price and outcome of each, and the value estimate. You can also save a search by area and maximum price and receive an alert when an auction that meets it appears, including the new attempt of a lot you have already seen. Public Sales Portal listings are updated four times a day, so a new notice usually appears the same day, or at the latest the next morning.

The judicial auction statistics show the average reduction and how many auctions are at the second, third or fourth attempt; city pages, such as Milan or Rome, show the auctions in each area. The date, price and conditions are set by the notice published on the Public Sales Portal: that is the reference.