Execution sale. Are Required to bid artificially high in order to avoid the sale as being "defective " vs free market result?

[TheQuestion]

What is the name of your state? UT

I am the credit bidder in a storage unit being auctioned on a Execution sale.
The money I bid goes against the money I am owed by the individual. Should I bid artificially high in order for the sale to be looked at as non-defective or can I allow the natural free market economy play out and simple lets other bid on the property and outbid them until I win.

In one situation, I will probably artificially bid $500 for it, whereas with the free market method, I pay end up getting it for $115 instead.

The items in the storage unit are sort of specialty creams and "magic" crystals and stones. The type of stuff you need a special buyer for and not something the average joe would consider of value.

Thanks

 

[adjusterjack]

Should I bid artificially high in order for the sale to be looked at as non-defective

I have no idea what you mean by that.

The money I bid goes against the money I am owed by the individual.

No, it doesn't. It goes to the storage place for unpaid rent and whatever it costs to hold the auction for that unit.

What you sell the contents for goes toward your judgment.

The items in the storage unit are sort of specialty creams and "magic" crystals and stones.

That will probably sell for pennies on the dollar.

Seems to me that bidding artificially high would just be throwing your money away.

 

[TheQuestion]

I have no idea what you mean by that.



No, it doesn't. It goes to the storage place for unpaid rent and whatever it costs to hold the auction for that unit.

What you sell the contents for goes toward your judgment.



That will probably sell for pennies on the dollar.

Seems to me that bidding artificially high would just be throwing your money away.

I received some possible bad advice it would seem that if I did not bit at least $500 for the junk in the storage unit, then the court would proclaim it was a defective sale. The problem is the items in the storage unit was worthless junked that was not worth $500.

Constable who is an officer of the court I think did all the necessary things you are suppose to do for this type of auction.
Auction had people who are professional storage auction hunters like you see on the TV shows who look at the storage unit and proclaim everything in there to be garbage of no value.

He was selling the auction of the items in a storage unit that was taken with a writ of execution.

I don't know what you mean about storage fees or leasing amounts? I don't think he owed any money to the storage company.

They did not serve the writ of execution, my company did for money owed unrelated to any storage lease. We are just looking for assets to pay off the judgement.

However, I did not like the advice we received that we had to bit at least $500 for items that under normal circumstances would have gone for under $100 had we not attended the auction. Maybe $100 tops to avoid what they called a " defective sale" I see nothing in the law saying that storage auction have to be at least $500.

I do feel like I threw away money I did not have to which is upsetting to me.

P.S. The original owner of the storage unit also tried to poison the sale by serving them(not the court) with papers saying they were illegally taking his property and trespassing. Claiming that looking or buying his stuff would be illegal and implied that he would sue everyone. He even accused the storage company of a bunch of crazy stuff as well saying they did not have a right to operate a business in the state, etc..

I'm not sure if that could be considered contempt's of court, obstruction of justice, interference, etc... but he did try to screw up the sale. Maybe a question for a new post.

 

[LdiJ]

You explained your situation a bit backwards. Normally a storage unit that is being auctioned is being done so because the person has not paid the storage fees. Therefore, the first thing that you should have explained was that you were the one (or your company was the one) who got the writ of execution. Your first sentence, in your first post, did not make any sense.

I don't know why you even bothered to bid at all once you knew that the items where basically worthless. Why didn't you just walk away? I am a bit surprised that the auction company didn't walk away. There certainly wasn't enough money in it for them.

 

[adjusterjack]

I'm not sure if that could be considered contempt's of court, obstruction of justice, interference, etc... but he did try to screw up the sale. Maybe a question for a new post.

Don't bother with a new post. Nothing's going to happen to him for doing it and you'll only be throwing good money after bad.

However, I did not like the advice we received that we had to bit at least $500 for items that under normal circumstances would have gone for under $100 had we not attended the auction. Maybe $100 tops to avoid what they called a " defective sale" I see nothing in the law saying that storage auction have to be at least $500.

Looks like you did get bad advice.

The way levying personal property works is that the execution order is issued, the constable seizes the property and hold an auction to dispose of it. The proceeds go first to pay the constable's fee, the auctioneer's fee or commission, and the fee to the venue where the auction is held. There may, or may not, be other fees and costs involved. What's left of the proceeds goes to you. You shouldn't have to bid at all. If the proceeds aren't enough to pay all the fees you pay the difference. If nobody bids on anything you can probably get it all for a dollar, or abandon it all back to the owner, but then you still pay all the fees out of your own pocket.

I once had the option of that kind of levy against a defendant. When I was apprised of the costs against the possibility of getting pennies on the dollar I gave up on the idea. The judgment, of course, was uncollectible. The defendant was a deadbeat.

I suggest you don't bid at all and wait and see how the auction goes.

Feel free to report back here with the results.

 

[TheQuestion]

You explained your situation a bit backwards. Normally a storage unit that is being auctioned is being done so because the person has not paid the storage fees. Therefore, the first thing that you should have explained was that you were the one (or your company was the one) who got the writ of execution. Your first sentence, in your first post, did not make any sense.

I don't know why you even bothered to bid at all once you knew that the items where basically worthless. Why didn't you just walk away? I am a bit surprised that the auction company didn't walk away. There certainly wasn't enough money in it for them.

Hi.

I am not in the storage industry so I don't know all the insider lingo or norms. I am viewing this from my point of view which is that we got a judgement again a guy and he refused to pay. We found assets located at some storage unit which the court took via a writ of execution.

The constable sold this via a auction along with some other unrelated stuff .

My question is if it was stupid to bid MORE then what the auction would normally bring for the purpose of trying to make it seem more legitimate and not " defective"

I felt like it was throwing money away and it was a bad advice given to me. If I had let someone else make the first bid, then tried to outbid him $1 at a time. We may have gotten into a bidding war. If I let the other guy win, we would have taken home real money instead of useless junk.

The advice given of starting a $500 bid off the bat made it so there was no bidding war, I am left with storage unit full of junk and lose $500 for what could of been had for 1/5 that amount.

 

[adjusterjack]

See, here's an example of Garbage In, Garbage Out. An old computer term meaning the information you get is only as good as the information you give.

In your first post your question was couched in terms indicating that your were asking advice on what you might be going to do at some future time.

Now you've revealed that you already did it and are suffering the consequences.

You could have saved us all a lot of time and typing be revealing that at the getgo. We would have just agreed that it was a bonehead move and moved on. Armchair quarterbacking is useless.

 

[zddoodah]

Should I bid artificially high in order for the sale to be looked at as non-defective or can I allow the natural free market economy play out and simple lets other bid on the property and outbid them until I win.

It's an auction. You must bid whatever the minimum bid is (which may be artificially high but will be determined by the sheriff conducting the sale). Beyond that, if you want to be the winning bidder, you are held to the same rules as any other bidder.