Until now, the case law of the Court of Cassation has clarified that under Article 704 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the debtor may exercise the right to offer the buyer of the property in auction only until the publication of auctions on a special website. Accordingly, it was explained that the debtor could not exercise this right after the first auction had been published on a special website, including in cases where the first auction had been declared failed.
However, the court declared that the sale of the debtor’s property to the buyer named by him had priority over the sale of the property by auction, and after assessing the need to change the existing practice, clarified that the debtor has the right to offer the buyer of his property not until the first auction, as in the case law, but before the announcement of the second auction on the special website www.evarzytynes.lt, even if the first auction did not take place due, for example, to the fact that the purchaser of the property who won them did not pay the price offered.
The panel of judges of the Supreme Court of Lithuania changed the formed practice in civil case No. 3K-3-189-684/202017 in 17 June 2020 decision and declared that the fair market value of the assets to be recovered is not the same as that offered in the failed auction, but not paid cost, therefore, the property may be sold to a buyer of the debtor’s choice at a price not less than the value of the seized property specified in the latest seizure deed or a lower price if they are sufficient to fully cover the indebtedness and the enforcement costs incurred.
ARTICLE PREPARED BY:
Černiauskas and Partners Law Firm Lawyer Daiva Monika Gineikė.
