Certified Auctioneer
Role of an Auctioneer
An auctioneer performs many duties before the day of the auction. He gathers items for sale in one location and, if the auction involves small items, sorts items into similar lots to help facilitate their sale. The auctioneer and his crew clean up the sale site before they leave.
An Auctioneer's Duties
- Before beginning any auction sale of real or personal property, it is the duty of every auctioneer to state fully the terms and conditions upon which the sale will be made. Further, an auctioneer shall announce the character, quality and description of the property offered for sale to the persons present. The duty of an auctioneer generally includes, but is not limited to, the notification as to whether or not a right to bid is reserved by or on behalf of the seller.
- An auctioneer, by selling property for another at an auction, is the agent of the seller. In the absence of an applicable statute to the contrary, the auctioneer’s rights and liabilities are governed by the general principles of the law of agency.
- The mere fact that an auctioneer is sometimes required to take out a license in order to exercise his or her calling does not make the auctioneer a public officer. Since an auctioneer is usually selling the property of another, an auctioneer’s authority to conduct the sale is derived from the person whose property he or she undertakes to sell.
- An auctioneer is primarily the agent of that person, being selected and remunerated by him or her, acting in that person’s interests, and to an extent, being subservient to his or her wishes[i].
- As a general proposition, an auctioneer owes a basic duty of competence and fairness to the seller. An auctioneer, as the agent of the seller, is in a fiduciary position and has a duty to turn over proceeds of the auction sale in full, such proceeds being tantamount to trust funds. An auctioneer must exercise ordinary care and skill in the performance of the duties confided to him or her. If an auctioneer assumes a position that is entirely inconsistent with that of his or her agency relationship, the auctioneer may lose his or her right to compensation for his/her services and may be held accountable to the principal for any side profit received by him or her as a result of the sale which the auctioneer did not disclose to the principal. However, a person cannot avoid the clean hands doctrine by “relying” on advice or inducement by an auctioneer to engage in a course of conduct evidently illegal or unethical. Any representation, in order that one may be justified in relying upon it, must be to some degree reasonable. In all cases, the representation must not be so self-contradictory or absurd that no reasonable man can believe it.