Auction House lost lot

LouiseHenly

Good Morning,

I am enquiring what rights I have as a person who has taken an item to auction for sale & the auction house has lost the item .

In May I took a bottle of vintage whiskey & decanter set to Wessex auction rooms in Wiltshire. I was e-mailed an estimate of £80 -£120 .

After numerous sales & my item not coming up for sale a Director from Wessex finally said the item ( which had high sentimental value ) had been lost & they would give me £80. 

I refused and said at the very least we should meet midway at £100 between the lowest & highest estimate but the Director was very rude saying he wasn’t interested in sentiment if it sold for £80 we would only get £60 with fees so it was take or leave it at £80. 

I was very shocked at his attitude and lack of apology as they had denied me the opportunity of seeing the potential of what the lot might of sold for and for being able to take it elsewhere to sale. I asked that he put this offer in an email to me.

A week has passed and he hasn’t sent an email.

What are my rights please & where do I stand as he was the Director and there is nobody higher that I can complain to.

I appreciate any advice that can be offered please. 

RFW

Take the £80.

Then report them to Trading Standards via your local council.

If you went to court you'd only ever receive the lowest amount less auction fees so you'd probably lose more by doing that.

Even if you thought the valuation was incorrect you still accepted it. By putting it in the auction you agreed for it to sell for £80 less fees. I would guess you also signed for the auctioneers terms of acceptance and there will be plenty of disclaimers in that.

The only possible route to extra compensation is if you found the auctioneer to have been lying and even then you'd struggle.

LouiseHenly

RFW said:

Take the £80.

Then report them to Trading Standards via your local council.

If you went to court you'd only ever receive the lowest amount less auction fees so you'd probably lose more by doing that.

Even if you thought the valuation was incorrect you still accepted it. By putting it in the auction you agreed for it to sell for £80 less fees. I would guess you also signed for the auctioneers terms of acceptance and there will be plenty of disclaimers in that.

The only possible route to extra compensation is if you found the auctioneer to have been lying and even then you'd struggle.

Thank you for your prompt advice. It is appreciated. 

MattMattMattUK

LouiseHenly said:

Good Morning,

I am enquiring what rights I have as a person who has taken an item to auction for sale & the auction house has lost the item .

In May I took a bottle of vintage whiskey & decanter set to Wessex auction rooms in Wiltshire. I was e-mailed an estimate of £80 -£120 .

After numerous sales & my item not coming up for sale a Director from Wessex finally said the item ( which had high sentimental value ) had been lost & they would give me £80. 

If it had genuinely high sentimental value then you would not be selling it. Sentimental value is not insurable.

LouiseHenly said:

I refused and said at the very least we should meet midway at £100 between the lowest & highest estimate but the Director was very rude saying he wasn’t interested in sentiment if it sold for £80 we would only get £60 with fees so it was take or leave it at £80.

In terms of an offer it is probably reasonable, when you account for the fees. 

LouiseHenly said:

I was very shocked at his attitude and lack of apology as they had denied me the opportunity of seeing the potential of what the lot might of sold for and for being able to take it elsewhere to sale.

You need to take the emotion out of this, it is entirely irrelevant to the matter at hand.

LouiseHenly said:

I asked that he put this offer in an email to me.

A week has passed and he hasn’t sent an email.

What are my rights please & where do I stand as he was the Director and there is nobody higher that I can complain to.

I appreciate any advice that can be offered please. 

I would chase them up for the money, having the "offer" in an email is irrelevant if they give you the money. Your other option would be to issue a letter before action, then court proceedings to recover the value of the item from them, the court would probably award something similar to what they are offering, so if they actually pay you the £80 then it would not make sense to go down that route. If of course they fail to send you the money then court would likely be your only option. 

martindow

I'm not at all surprised that items get 'lost' at auctions.  I have been to several where there has been minimal checking of items being picked up and carried out while the auction is in progress, especially at disposal actions not at salerooms.  I suppose the vast majority of people must be honest and paying for their items.

I think RFW was an auctioneer previously and could comment on how much of an issue this is with auctioneer's staff or the public acting carelessly or dishonestly.

bris

LouiseHenly said:

 ( which had high sentimental value ) 

The price you put on that sentimental value was £80 to £120 so it was actually a pretty low sentimental value, in fact none at all or it wouldn't be in the auction.

It has a value though, the one you accepted so being fair the midway would be £100 less fees so the £80 is about right and an offer that cuts out all the stress of taking it further.

Don't forget that the small claims court awards costs against you if they believe the claim is "frivolous". This means you are wasting the courts time when a perfectly good offer is unfairly refused. So you have to take into consideration that any person hearing the case would maybe think that your offer from them was what you were expecting to get anyway.

RFW

martindow said:

I'm not at all surprised that items get 'lost' at auctions.  I have been to several where there has been minimal checking of items being picked up and carried out while the auction is in progress, especially at disposal actions not at salerooms.  I suppose the vast majority of people must be honest and paying for their items.

I think RFW was an auctioneer previously and could comment on how much of an issue this is with auctioneer's staff or the public acting carelessly or dishonestly.

I've been an auctioneer and been around auctions for a long time! Collecting stock whilst the sale is still in progress can be a recipe for disaster. Losing stock is not really a big problem but obviously happens. Most people want what they purchased and nothing different.

Anywhere where there are staff and members of the public with minimal security will have pilfering. When it's a bankruptcy the auctioneer will invariably write it off and no one will ever notice or find out.

There have been some high profile cases of fraud by members of auction staff. That's often at a financial level rather than with stock, so they were taking £1000 for a lot and accounting it as £500. Liquidators, bailiffs and auctioneers can cream off quite a bit without anyone noticing if they were that way inclined.

mjm3346

You would have accepted less than £70 (£80 if they only charge 15% = £68)  - should have taken the £80 (which is probably close to what you would have got from a £100 hammer price)

theoretica

After fees, the offer does look like midway.  You gave the item to the auctioneer and wanted cash in return, that is what you have been offered.  It seems an entirely fair offer and I can see why the director might be annoyed that it wasn't the end of the matter.  It is not unusual for sellers at auction to hope that their item will sell for more than the auctioneer estimates, and it happens.  The other way also happens where it sells for less, or not at all leaving you with fees - did you agree a minimum price of 80 or below?