A government auction or a public auction is an auction held on behalf of a government in which the property to be auctioned is either property owned by the government or property which is sold under the authority of a court of law or a government agency with similar authority. [1] [2] [3]
When the term "government auction" is used it often means that a general auctioneer has been contracted to deal with stock that needs to be liquidated by various government bodies:
Often goods sold at government auctions will be unreserved, meaning that they will be sold to the highest bidder at the auction.[ citation needed ]
Auctioneers are normally contracted by the different government organisations within their local area.[ citation needed ]
Government property sold at public auction may include surplus government equipment, abandoned property over which the government has asserted ownership, property which has passed to the government by escheat, government land, and intangible assets over which the government asserts authority, such as broadcast frequencies sold through a spectrum auction.
Public auctions of government property may be conducted by whichever agency is auctioning the property. Some substantial items have been sold at public auction. For example, the United States Navy cruiser Philadelphia was sold at such an auction at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in 1927.
In 2021, GSA offered a 0.7501 share of a bitcoin valued more than $38,000 for an auction. [4] Kevin Kerns, an acting regional administrator of GSA's Southeast Sunbelt Region, stated: "Whether it’s a car, or a piece of jewelry, or now even cryptocurrency, you never know what kind of treasures you’ll find on GSA Auctions”. It was the first time ever that GSA auctioned cryptocurrency.
Private property may be sold in a public auction for a number of reasons. It may be seized through a governmental process to satisfy a judgment rendered by a court or agency, or to liquidate a mortgage foreclosure, tax lien, or tax sale. Usually, prices obtained at a public auction to satisfy a judgment are distressed – that is, they are much lower than the price which would be obtained for that property if the seller were free to hold out for an optimal time to sell.[ citation needed ]
In the United States, public auctions to satisfy judgments are usually conducted under the authority of the sheriff of the county or city in which the property to be auctioned was seized pursuant to the judgment, and an auction held for such a purpose is also called a sheriff's sale or sheriff sale. [5] [6] [7]
Real property may be subject to a public auction in order to partition the property between joint tenants who can not agree as to how the property should be divided. An estate sale conducted at the direction of a probate court may also be conducted as a public auction.
In ancient Roman Empire, the maintenance of the public works such as aqueducts, roads, drains, etc. were let out by the censors by public auction to the lowest bidder, just as the vectigalia were let out to the highest bidder. These expenses were called ultrotributa, and hence we frequently find vectigalia and ultrotributa contrasted with one another. [8]
The Proceeds of Crime Act allows for a court to confiscate items that a criminal can't legally account for.
Government auctions are usually held by nominated auction houses all around the UK. They will instruct an auction house which will sell the items on their behalf.
There are many thousands of such court orders issued each year, and items that can't be returned to their legal owner are auctioned off at local auction houses all over the UK. Police auctions are an established route used by regional police forces across the country to dispose of proceeds of crime, lost and found, seized, and unclaimed stolen and confiscated property.
Government auctions are often held onsite in the US, generally hosted by a professional auctioneer. A wide variety of merchandise is available from a number of websites both official and unofficial. The Internet provides services to various government agencies that allow them to sell surplus and confiscated items.
Government agencies sell goods via various contracted auctioneers and online on websites such as Trade Me.
Brazil runs auctions to sell surplus electrical energy. [9] Brazilian state also holds auction for contracts for solar and wind power. [10]
Germany established the website zvg-portal.de to announce court auctions of real estate. [11] There are over 120 real estates every day auctioned on court auctions by German authorities.
Azerbaijan started an e-auction platform eherrac.gov.az in 2020 in order to influence the property prices positively. [12]
An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition exist and are described in the section about different types. The branch of economic theory dealing with auction types and participants' behavior in auctions is called auction theory.
A bailiff is a manager, overseer or custodian – a legal officer to whom some degree of authority or jurisdiction is given. Bailiffs are of various kinds and their offices and duties vary greatly.
Sotheby's is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and maintains a significant presence in the UK.
Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the collateral for the loan.
A surplus store or disposals store is a business that sells items and goods that are used, purchased but unused, or past their use by date, and are no longer needed due to excess supply, decommissioning, or obsolescence. The surplus sold is often military, government, or industrial goods; in the case of the former two, the business is usually called a military surplus store, government surplus store, war surplus store, or army-navy store.
A warrant of execution is a form of writ of execution used in the County Court in England and Wales (only). It is a method of enforcing judgments and empowers a County Court bailiff to attend a judgment debtor’s address to take goods for sale. The closest equivalent in Scotland is a charge for payment, executed by sheriff officers after a decree is granted in a sheriff court in favour of a pursuer (claimant) seeking recovery of a debt or other sum due.
Felthouse v Bindley [1862] EWHC CP J35, is the leading English contract law case on the rule that one cannot impose an obligation on another to reject one's offer. This is sometimes misleadingly expressed as a rule that "silence cannot amount to acceptance".
Repossession, colloquially repo, is a "self-help" type of action, mainly in the United States, in which the party having right of ownership of the property in question takes the property back from the party having right of possession without invoking court proceedings. The property may then be sold by either the financial institution or third party sellers.
A High Court enforcement officer (HCEO) is an officer of the High Court of England and Wales responsible for enforcing judgements of the High Court, often by seizing goods or repossessing property. Prior to 2004, HCEOs were known as sheriff's officers and were responsible for enforcing High Court writs on behalf of the high sheriff for each county, but they are now directly responsible for such writs. HCEOs operate only in England and Wales.
Asset forfeiture or asset seizure is a form of confiscation of assets by the authorities. In the United States, it is a type of criminal-justice financial obligation. It typically applies to the alleged proceeds or instruments of crime. This applies, but is not limited, to terrorist activities, drug-related crimes, and other criminal and even civil offenses. Some jurisdictions specifically use the term "confiscation" instead of forfeiture. The alleged purpose of asset forfeiture is to disrupt criminal activity by confiscating assets that potentially could have been beneficial to the individual or organization.
The Hungarian Gold Train was the German-operated train during World War II that carried stolen valuables, mostly Hungarian Jews' property, from Hungary towards Berlin in 1945. After American forces seized and looted the train in Austria, almost none of the valuables were returned to Hungary, their rightful owners, or their surviving family members.
The U.S. Forest Service airtanker scandal involved a scheme, officially called the Historical Aircraft Exchange Program, in which the U.S. Forest Service would acquire retired U.S. Air Force C-130A transport aircraft and U.S. Navy P-3 anti-submarine patrol aircraft, ostensibly for use as firefighting airtankers, but which ended up with the planes' ownership being transferred illegally to private companies and the aircraft themselves being used for other purposes or even sold for a profit. The controversy resulted in two of the involved principals being sentenced to prison and a number of civil lawsuits.
Hyatt v. Vincennes Nat. Bank, 113 U.S. 408 (1885), was a case involving the sale of property conveyed to Hyatt for a term of 50 years for all the mineral coal upon and under a described tract of land, in Knox County, Indiana, with the exclusive right to enter on the land to dig for the coal, and remove it, and to occupy with constructions and buildings as needed to obtain the coal. Hyatt would then have the right to remove all buildings or fixtures placed on the land, when the agreement expired, and to pay a fixed royalty for the coal mined.
Daulia Ltd v Four Millbank Nominees Ltd [1977] is an English contract law case, concerning unilateral contracts, and when embarking on the performance of an act for which an offer is open, at what point the offer may be withdrawn. In particular, Goff LJ observed that there would be a duty to not prevent full performance of terms in a unilateral offer, once performance had begun.
GCSurplus is a Canadian government department responsible for handling moveable Crown assets that a federal department or agency has declared as surplus under the Surplus Crown Assets Act. Surplus assets are typically auctioned off to the public through the GCSurplus website.
The collection of judgments in Virginia may be accomplished under a number of routes provided under Virginia law, depending on the amount of the judgment and the particular assets that the judgment creditor wishes to pursue.
PropertyRoom.com is a live online auction website that sells confiscated police goods and approved third party merchant merchandise to the highest winning bidder. PropertyRoom.com is the largest online police auction website in the United States.
A police auction is an auction of goods which have been confiscated by the police and cannot or may not be returned to their original owners. They may also contain surplus and retired police equipment, such as used police cars.
Ukrainian Universal Exchange (UUE) — Ukrainian company, commodity exchange, which is represented in several regions of Ukraine. June 2015 - the largest exchange in Ukraine.
Tyler v. Hennepin County, 598 U.S. 631 (2023), was a United States Supreme Court case about government seizure of property for unpaid taxes, when the value of the property seized is greater than the tax debt. A unanimous court held that the surplus value is protected by the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause.
