OPINION:The implication that all auctioneers are untrustworthy is an undeserved smear that is not based on reality, writes SARAH CAREY
I SEE that Government sources have said that Nama, the National Asset Management Agency, is unlikely to employ any Irish estate agencies for the purposes of valuing the properties it acquires. What an indictment of Irish auctioneers. Is the Government really saying there is not one in the country who can be trusted to give a fair and reasonable value on a property?
Even in Sodom, Abraham was able to find four righteous persons to save from the Lord’s wrath. Out of all the professions who have disgraced themselves – bankers, politicians, regulators, developers and accountants – one group has been singled out for collective punishment. Surely there are just among the wicked that should be spared?
Solicitors have their Michael Lynn. Bankers have their FitzPatrick and Fingelton. Developer hubris has brought us to our knees while auditors signed off on accounts that were worthy of Booker nominations. All this took place under the noses of officials and politicians who were asleep on the job. It seems a little harsh that auctioneers alone have been asked to carry the can for bank insolvency and near national bankruptcy.
Now I would say that wouldn’t I? Half the family are auctioneers, so I can confidently swear an oath testifying to their particular honour. Surely we can turn up even a dozen or so more after a nationwide search?
Even those directly connected to the collapse of the system have been forgiven their sins. Peter Bacon who got the cushy job as Government consultant on Nama is a former executive chairman of Ballymore Properties. Merrill Lynch, the investment bankers who required a $40 billion bailout by the US government, are financial advisors to the State. Accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers won the lucrative contract to investigate Anglo-Irish Bank even though just last autumn they confidently gave our banks a clean bill of health.
If those directly-connected vested interests are let in the door, then why not estate agents who have no direct conflict with the properties being dumped in Nama?
Presumably even the State’s own Valuations Office cannot be included if only foreigners need apply. Wouldn’t it save the State a fortune in consultancy fees if they simply gave their own qualified civil servants the job of valuing the property? Or by virtue of those qualifications, is their genetic code presumed to be fatally flawed?
It’s true that the reputation of estate agents is poor and not without cause. Since every two-bit snake-oil salesmen is able to set up as an auctioneer, it was inevitable that dodgy and occasionally criminal practice emerged. I did always wonder how particular auctioneers whose swindles and frauds were known far and wide managed to stay in business.
Before you start providing examples of dastardly acts by auctioneers of your acquaintance, please accept I am not denying bad practice. I am merely asking why the collective exclusion? Indeed, let me employ the Nuremberg defence to argue that auctioneers are not the sole guilty parties in crimes against property buyers.
Let me ask you this: if you were selling your house tomorrow would you give the sale to an auctioneer who might advise potential customers not to buy at the asking price? Of course not. You’d sue him if you found out he told buyers to hang on until next year. He might advise you to wait a couple of years, but if you gotta sell, you gotta sell. Within all bounds of decency – but using all his skill as a negotiator and salesman – you are paying the auctioneer to get the best price.
One thorny issue for which auctioneers are blamed, but where vendors are not entirely innocent, is gazumping. This happens quite rarely, but when it does it presents an ethical dilemma for an estate agent who might worry about such matters. Following an agreement of sale, an underbidder makes a higher offer. The auctioneer is legally and ethically obliged to inform the seller of the new bid.
He can advise them that it’s legal but not ethical to take the new bid. Sometimes the vendor plays fair – sometimes they don’t.
Aggrieved buyers might be heartened to hear that some are now taking revenge for past injustice. Gazundering, a term coined in the UK in its property slump of the 1980s, is making an appearance. A week before the contracts are due to be signed, the buyer says he wants to pay ten grand less for the house. It’s just as morally reprehensible as gazumping, but the buyer feels the tables have rightly turned in his favour. In this case, a desperate seller is the victim.
It’s a messy, painful business and I’ve personally witnessed appalling behaviour by all parties to a transaction – though none obviously in my virtuous relations.
No one expects all Irish solicitors to pay for Michael Lynn, yet all auctioneers are being asked to pay for the stars of a Prime Time Investigatesprogramme. Go ahead so, but if it's one out, then all out. No Irish developer-economists, no Irish solicitors, no Irish bankers, no Irish auditors or even no Irish politicians. Or how about we apply a little maturity and identify the guilty, the innocent and dispense with the cheap scapegoating?