General

• Can the Auction House put a fee on top of the sale to cover that 5%? Is it on the hammer price? 

  The resale royalty payable is calculated at 5% of the “resale value” of the qualifying resale (section 16).

  Section 10 says that “resale value” means: “the value of the consideration given for the visual artwork under the contract for resale”. 

  This may include:

  • the amount paid in New Zealand dollars;  
  • the value of goods and/or services paid in kind;  
  • (if paid in another currency), the amount converted to NZD at the date of payment.   

  It does not include:

  • goods and services tax (GST; or
  • duties, levies, or taxes (etc) under the Customs and Excise Act 2018; or
  • “any costs associated with the resale, for example, a commission or a buyer’s premium” 

  So, the Auction House / Art Market Professional’s fees would be a cost or premium or commission associated with the resale, and are therefore excluded from the calculation of “resale value” or the royalty. 

  Auction Houses and other Art Market Professional’s must be cognisant of other rules in the Act that prohibit waiving, charging, repaying or sharing the royalty: 

  • An artist cannot ‘alienate’ their royalty right during their lifetime (s 13).  This means an artist cannot lose, sell, license, assign, charge, or waive their resale right during their lifetime, and any agreement to do so is void (s 13(2)). 
  • Any agreement to repay the resale royalty is void (s 17(5)), as is any agreement to share the royalty (except where the Act provides that a royalty can be held in shares e.g. where there are joint artists (s 12), or multiple successors (s 14(4)). 

• How do I update my details?

  To update personal information and contact details, you can log into the RRA portal and make changes. To update declarations or any other information, please email us at kiaora@resaleroyalties.co.nz

• How do you define ‘limited number of copies’? 

  The Act does not define what a limited number of copies is, although there is provision in the Copyright Act that a 3 Dimensional artwork that has fewer than 50 copies produced is copyright protectable, so this might be a useful benchmark. We suggest using good faith best efforts to do your due diligence in researching, and keep a record of your research in case it is needed at a future date.  If you have any concerns or want to discuss then please just get in touch with us. 

• What is the process for claiming an unpaid resale royalty?

  RRA will periodically inspect and audit published auction sale results to monitor compliance with the Act and Regulations.  However, because we rely on art market professionals and other stakeholders in the Scheme to notify us of resale payments that are due on qualifying resales, we may occasionally not be aware of a qualifying resale.

  A Right Holder who believes that a qualifying resale has taken place is encouraged to notify us through the “Contact Us” form available on our website. 

  Right Holders have 6 years from the date of the qualifying resale to notify us of any claim from the date of the resale.  After that period expires, we will have no liability to the Right Holder to collect or pay the resale royalty.

  If a Right Holder wishes to notify us of a resale royalty they think they are owed, they must provide us with:

  • Evidence that the person is the Right Holder
  • Evidence that the relevant resale is a qualifying resale
  • The names of the persons liable under section 17 of the Act to pay the resale royalty, if known.

  On receipt of such a notice from a Right Holder, we will use reasonable efforts to verify the claim.  If the claim is verified and we have not already processed the relevant resale royalty payment, we will notify the persons who are liable to pay the resale royalty of their obligations under the Scheme and follow our process set out above for collecting and distributing the resale royalty payment.  We will then have no further obligation to the Right Holder until we receive the resale royalty payment.  While we will use reasonable efforts to resolve claims, we cannot guarantee any particular outcome.