East China court auctions apartment online

HANGZHOU -- An east China court is auctioning an apartment seized in a lawsuit through Taobao.com, the country's largest consumer online shopping platform.

The auction of the 35.12 sq meter apartment in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, by the Xiaoshan District People's Court started 10 am Monday, with the bidding price starting at 280,000 yuan ($44,444).

As of 6 pm, the price rose to 283,000 yuan after four markups.

Different from ordinary online auctions, the identities of bidders for judicial auctions should be verified in advance. Bidders need to submit deposits using their real names through Alipay, an online payment service for Taobao.com consumers.

The auction will end at 10 am Tuesday.

Courts in Zhejiang have previously auctioned seized properties, mostly automobiles, through Taobao.com.

On July 11, a BMW 730 sedan, seized in a lawsuit by the Beilun District People's Court in Ningbo, was sold to a bidder on Taobao.com. It marked the country's first judicial auction to take place on a third-party commercial website without an auction agent.

As of November 1, 22 items have been auctioned on the website in this way.

Chinese courts' traditional handling of assets seized in lawsuits has been accused of not being transparent, with transaction prices much lower than real value of items being auctioned.

China has established a national online auction platform to aid in the auction of assets seized by courts. This platform requires the involvement of an auction house, and successful buyers have to pay 0.2 to 5 percent of the transaction prices to the auction house as commissions.

Taobao auctions, however, feature no auction houses or commissions.

While some experts said the online auctions on Taobao.com can effectively help avoid rigging and corruption, others voiced doubts about validity of such auctions.