Going, going, gone! A day in the life of an auctioneer

With a straight face and a clear voice, Mr Apollo Owuor beams with  pride as he shares his experience as an auctioneer for the last 18 years.

He wears his longevity in the trade as a badge of honour.

Some of his milestones in the occupation include sitting at the Auctioneers Licensing Board for the last four years and currently chairing the National Association of Kenyan Auctioneers (Naka).

But one thing bothers him — that not all Kenyans hold auctioneers in high regard.

Arguing his case animatedly, Mr Owuor, who is the sole proprietor of Victoria Blue Auctioneer Services, fights off the notion that they engage in dirty business that can attract curses.

“Let me put it this way: You go to a bank, for example, and they give you a loan for Sh6 million to buy an FH lorry for which you only paid 10 per cent. It’s a brand new lorry. Your contribution was 10 per cent. Three, four months down the line, you are not paying the loan. Would you call that a curse when it’s taken away?”

He adds: “You stay in somebody’s house, and there is a landlord who has loans to clear, and you are not paying rent. At the end of the month, the bank will not want to know whether he has a tenant who is not paying or not. Look at it in a positive way and that’s when you’ll understand.”

He says that many do not understand how important an auctioneer is “until that time you are helped by an auctioneering firm to survive a situation”.

“Until you lend your friend Sh500,000, he refuses to repay you, you take him to court, get a judgment, you will not care what happens to his car. You cannot see somebody driving a car because of your Sh500,000 and you’re down and you have a judgment. You’ll tow that car. That is justice, according to me,” he says.

He explains that what he and other auctioneers make is “very clean money”.

“Without auctioneers, even insurance companies would not be settling accident claims. They take time until an auctioneer engages. That’s when they pay. That is one thing Kenyans should really appreciate auctioneers for,” he says.

To show the diversity of the sector that is often associated with “tough” men, Mr Owuor says more women are joining.

“I remember we had an interview with one of the ladies we recruited early last month. She’s a teacher by profession, trained at Kenyatta University. She had no job. You know, the government is not employing teachers. She joined an auctioneering firm, now she has her firm as an auctioneer. And she says she doesn’t want to teach any more and no longer believes in employment,” he says.

JUST LIKE ANY OTHER BUSINESS

“So, Kenyans should take it just like any other business. For young men who do not have jobs, come and join the profession. We are streamlining it,” he says.

But it is not only Mr Owuor who feels slighted by the perceptions towards auctioneers.

Mr George Muiruri, who has been plying the trade under Leakey’s Auctioneers for 20 years, believes there is something divine about the work he does.

“We are at the end of the judicial process. When courts give decisions or judgments, it is the work of the auctioneer to do the execution,” he says.

Their role, he adds, may sometimes appear to be like doing the “dirty job” but in most instances they are just executing orders.

“By execution I mean we have to do the attachment. And you know that if you go to take somebody’s item or asset, of course there will be resistance. You will be seen as kind of unfair. Whereas we are allowed by law to do the execution, in this case people take us as if we are thugs,” he says.

This, says Mr Muiruri, may sometimes include evicting a family from their home, making some think “we are bad people”.

“This is an honest business. We are guided by the law. Even during Jesus’ time, there were debt collectors, weren’t there? Jesus Christ spent a night in a debt collector’s house. If it is not a divine profession, he would not have associated himself with debt collectors, would he?” asks Mr Muiruri.

Mr Owuor and Mr Muiruri were contributing to a Lifestyle conversation about people who deal in money and people’s property — auctioneers, shylocks and debt collectors.

“Cursed”, “exploitative”, “insensitive” are some of the terms used by people when discussing those occupations.

“I’m not sure I can buy anything from an auctioneer. I would rather buy new stuff from a store,” says Ms Sarah Ndambuki, a social worker in Eldoret.

For Mr Robet Njenga, a Nairobi taxi driver, getting a loan from a shylock against an item is like “buying the same item three times”.

A similar view is held by motorcyclist Moses Ireri: “They take advantage of you because they’ve bailed you out.” 

Mr Abraham Juma, a Bible scholar aspiring to be a pastor at the Seventh Day Adventist church, says the auction process often flouts the rules that God gave to Israelites in the book of Leviticus.

“God allowed it (taking a loan against some property). But that land was to be redeemed by members of the same family so that it does not go to somebody else. For example, if I’m the one taking a loan against my shamba then I’m unable to pay, somebody else in our family should buy it. That property is not supposed to get lost,” he says.

But whether they are hated or not, whether their trade is unreligious or not, the fact remains that shylocks and auctioneers will continue being in our midst; that the auctioneer’s hammer will keep falling.

For example, when the hammer falls next, a man stands to lose a 0.84-acre plot off the Mombasa-Malindi highway in Kilifi County. Garam Investments announced in the dailies last week that the plot will be up for grabs at Mombasa’s Gathecha House at 12pm tomorrow.

And when another hammer falls  on December 14, someone else may lose his three-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a residential building in Ruaka, Kiambu County. Legacy Auctioneering Services have announced  that the auction will take place in Nairobi from 11am and that all bidders must deposit a refundable Sh1 million in advance.

PROPERTY LOSS

Two days later, another auction is scheduled to take place in Mombasa as announced by Garam Investments. With that, a man is likely to lose a three-bedroommaisonette at Mombasa’s Mtopanga Estate.

The scheduled auctions are just snapshots of what the more than 350 registered auctioneers in Kenya have undertaken this year.

With such life-shattering transactions they involve themselves in, and with the all-too-common rumours about the underhand dealings that happen in the sale process, it would be impossible not to be suspicious of auctioneers.

Moreover, a common perception that auctioneers collude with banks to push Kenyans against the wall does little to make them likeable.

A look at court cases involving banks and auction firms reveals some of the reasons why many people have a bone to pick with auctioneers.

One case commonly cited in legal circles involved a manager at the Standard Chartered Bank and a former employee at the bank. 

The employee, Beatrice Bosibori, had taken a loan of Sh605,500 to buy a house from the bank while working there. She was later declared redundant in 1994. In 2000, she received a sale notification from Dolphine Auctioneers.

Later, an auction was done and Ms Bosibori’s house was acquired by Mr Wilfred Bisonga, who was then the manager of the Moi Avenue branch of Standard Chartered.

“This smacks of conspiracy to defraud. To say the least (Standard Chartered and Mr Bisonga) colluded and the whole auction was contrived so that the property was sold to (the branch manager),” said Lady Justice Martha Koome as she awarded Ms Bosibori Sh1.4 million in damages.

So, do bank insiders use the auction process for their own benefit?

“Those may be there. But, remember, this is a public auction. And it is advertised in the dailies. Once you advertise, you won’t determine who comes,” says Mr Joseph Kahoro, who has been running Upscale Auctioneers for seven years.

“You won’t know if someone at the bank will come with their stooge, you don’t know if the owner of the property brought his stooge to buy. So, you leave that to the public. But, even if that person from the bank will be the highest bidder at an open public auction, I don’t see why you won’t sell to them.”

Another court case concluded last year brought to the fore the matter of auctioneers tending to conduct sales at prices way lower than market rates.

Olkasasi Limited took Equity Bank to court arguing that Keysian Auctioneers was planning to sell land in Kajiado County for Sh35 million while, in real sense, its open market value was Sh60 million. The land had been listed as security for a Sh5.6 million loan whose borrower had defaulted.

Though Olkasasi failed to convince the court that the auction valuation was erroneous, Mr Justice Francis Gikonyo in March 2015 ordered fresh valuation of the land close to the time of sale “given the rate at which property is appreciating especially those in the vicinity of Nairobi County including the locality of the suit property”.

Another common accusation against auctioneers is that they sell faulty goods while presenting them as perfect.

But, according to Mr Joseph Kahoro of Upscale Auctioneers, there is no room for auctioneers to repair damaged goods.

“Once you seize someone’s property, however faulty it is, you won’t take it for repairs. It is not your role, because you hold it in trust up to the auction day. An auction can be stopped even before the fall of the hammer. When the auctioneer is announcing, the owner can pay the money and the auction can be cancelled. So, if you did repairs, who bears that cost?” he asked.

He explains that the items are mostly sold on “as is where is” basis.

“But you give people time to view so they can make their own decision. If someone buys then finds it faulty, they should not blame the auctioneers,” he says.

Responding to another belief that auctioneers plant buyers to announce high bids to push prices up, Mr Kahoro says the blame lies elsewhere.

“That is not an auctioneer’s problem. That one is brought by many people. The owner of the property maybe doesn’t want it to be sold and they don’t have the ability, maybe they went to court and lost a plea for an injunction. That person may not have money but may want to buy time. Sometimes, these owners plant someone so that the person bids then refuses to pay in order to frustrate the auction,” he says.

Auction companies have also been accused of sending goons to demolish property, the latest incident alleged to have occurred on Thursday at the offices of the Kenya Tea Development Agencies where electronis were carried away.

In 2009, lawyer Paul Muite in 2010 fell victim to goons who raided his Nairobi home claiming to be auctioneers.

“It is a criminal offence for a purported auctioneer to hire goons, raid one’s property and damage property in the name of evicting one,” Mr Muite said after the incident.

Mr Owuor, the Naka chairman, says the association has done a lot to weed out rogue auctioneers.

Genuine auctioneers

“We inspect offices as an Auctioneers Licence Board. When we inspect your office, we need to see your staff.  We will be able to tell that so and so has this kind of staff. Not goons,” he says.

But he admitted that there could still  be crooked people out there.

“It comes sometimes with the transport we hire, maybe loaders. Loaders can be referred to as goons. But of course if you go to any godown, you will find those loaders there, behaving in a funny manner,” he says.

Mr Owuor asks Kenyans to report any misbehaviour to the Auctioneers Licensing Board.

The board, which is under the Judiciary, is headed by Land Court Judge Boaz Olao and sits every two months.

Auctioneers aside, shylocks are another crop of traders that draw condemnation for their ways of doing business.

A search of Facebook reveals that most shylocks market themselves by saying they do not check a customer’s records with the Credit Reference Bureau that blacklists loan defaulters from all financial institutions.

Mr Jason Mbogo has been running such a business with two partners since 2013.

They give out loans against items like laptops, smartphones, cars, land among others at an interest rate of 31 per cent per week.

“Some people think it’s taking advantage of the people’s problems. But in the other way, some people appreciate it a lot,” he says.

Once you take an item to them, they examine if it is working, then you sign an agreement and the money is yours.

“There is somebody who comes to get the loan even four times or 10 times in a year. He brings you a laptop, takes a loan, repays. He’s a good client,” he says.

However, their high interest rates have seen many people default and he now has a large collection of electronics to sell.

“We are witnessing hard economic times. People are saying the economy is growing but we wonder how, because so many people have failed to pay back even for their phones. You find even a very senior person coming with their iPhone to get a loan. He takes Sh10,000 then fails to repay,” says Mr Mbogo.

Another instant loan provider, who has an office at the heart of Nairobi and another in Buruburu, charges 30 per cent interest per month for a loan that is more than Sh4,000 that is secured by household electronics.

He turned down an interview with Lifestyle saying, “I don’t want to be a celeb.”

During this festive season when Kenyans usually spend large amounts of money, it is expected that instant loan providers like Mr Mbogo will make brisk business while in the next month of January, it is expected that auctioneers will be a thorn in the flesh of those Kenyans who fail to pay up in time.