Deceased Estate Auctions
Our fully managed service will maximise the financial return from items to be sold from a deceased or living estate
How we can help
Our process for deceased or living estate auctions
Every deceased or living estate client engagement is different. To make the process as smooth as possible, we will consult with you about your circumstances, objectives, and priorities, with full respect to the legacy of your loved one, and determine a customised approach to meet the unique circumstances you are managing. Here is our full process:
Our initial phone call will help us familiarise ourselves with your situation and priorities. This usually takes between 10-20 minutes and will help to give us a clear picture of what you need in relation to the property and the possessions within it.
Our service outline explains how we will respectfully clear the property of possessions, what we will do with the items within the home, and if required, prepare the property for sale. It also includes an itemised quote for our services.
If you are happy with the service outline and quote we have sent you, we will arrange to collect the keys to the property, and start clearing the home. We usually only need access to the property for 3 to 5 days, and will keep you updated along the way of the process as we head towards our final deadline day.
Once the property is cleared, and every item is catalogued (if you require this process), we will sell each of the items that are cost effective to sell through the sales channel which we believe will achieve the best result for you for the household items.
We offer the option of an itemised catalogue of all items sold, and we transfer any funds to you at the end of each calendar month until all items are sold.
How we can help you with Deceased or Living Estate Auctions
The death of a loved one is heartbreaking, and often worsened by the stressful duties and responsibilities that fall to the executor of the last will and testament. Equally challenging in many respects are the duties and responsibilities that fall on family members, usually operating in the capacity of power of attorney, when an elderly loved one moves to residential aged care.
One of the duties common to both circumstances are organising your loved one’s possessions, distributing items throughout the extended family that have been bequeathed or otherwise gifted, deciding which of them to sell, and then how to achieve the best price for the benefit of the estate or on behalf of the elderly loved one in care. At Property Clearance, we understand how exhausting this can be, and offer set services to manage the entire process for you
Auctions are just one way to sell an item, and if we limited ourselves to this single selling method, we would be much less likely to achieve the best financial return for the deceased or living estate. At Property Clearance, we match each item to the sales method that we believe will provide the best financial return. The methods we utilise include on-site and online auction services; retail sales environments; on-site in-person sales; several internet sales platforms; and private sales to our network of past buyers. We have significant experience leveraging these channels to deliver the best possible financial return for our clients.
As their name suggests, companies that offer deceased estate auctions tend to sell items using one method: auctions. Many will only assist with the higher value items such as fine art, antiques and vehicles. This only provides a partial solution to clients, and leaves you with what to do with the rest of the items in the home.
At Property Clearance, we handle every single item in the property, down to the last teaspoon in the kitchen drawer! Our mission is to achieve the best possible return for our clients for everything in the estate that is cost-effective to sell. When we clear properties, we do so with care, compassion and respect, and leave nothing behind.
If you would prefer for us to take care of everything for you—collating every possession, listing them for sale, and selling them for the best possible price—we are happy to manage this entire process for you. We understand how stressful this process can be, and can take as much of the responsibility as you need to be undertaken for you.
You don’t have to be close to where the property is located for us to help—we regularly assist families who live inter-state, and would have to fly hundreds of kilometres to manage the sale of items, taking precious time off work and time away from family and other responsibilities. Rather than doing so, we can arrange everything for you while keeping you fully informed by phone, video or zoom call, photos and email.
The executor of a will managing a deceased estate and the attorney managing a living estate for an elderly loved one both have a number of important legal responsibilities within the role which they have been delegated, which can be incredibly stressful. One of these responsibilities is identifying, safeguarding, and cataloguing the assets of the deceased or living estate. At Property Clearance, we take care of this entire task for the executor or attorney, allowing them to focus on other responsibilities.
If required we can build a full digital catalogue of all items that are in the home, which is updated as items are sold, and can be accessed by your solicitor and shared with family members. Depending on your needs this catalogue can include all items in the home, we have managed some with over 1000 items. You can see an example of a partial catalogue here.
Inevitably, there will be items that are not cost effective to sell. For these items we will ask if you would like us to donate items to charity or our re-use and re-cycle partners. Through our Pass-it-forward program, we can donate items on your behalf to charities where household items are taken so long as they are useful or can be returned to a useful condition. Within our Pass-it-forward program we work with our partners to assist a wide variety of people in need in our community. This way, every single item has the chance of being useful and valuable to someone again. We don’t throw away items unless absolutely necessary, and are in such a poor condition that they are no longer useful.
Many people prefer to complete the sale of items relatively quickly, which is why we have an 8 to 10 week turnaround for the majority of items we sell on behalf of our clients. This is to ensure that you are getting all the money from items sold during this timeframe.
FAQs – Deceased Estate Auctions Australia
In our experience—neither! Both processes are too limited in their approach. At Property Clearance, we sell your loved one’s items using the method that will get you the best price for that particular item, whether using physical retail stores, online stores, our existing network of buyers, or through an auction process.
We take care of every single item, including fine art, jewellery, silverware, collectables such as dolls, stamps, and coins or vast collections. Our experience with selling items and our extensive network of contacts allows us to achieve a sound market price for every single item, taking a little pressure away from you.
You are able to nominate a sales reserve on items if you wish. In this case we will not sell items below this level without your express permission.
If you would like us to provide a full digital catalogue of items, we can do so. This includes images of each item, a short description, and the price that it was sold for.
While we can arrange and sell every possession in your loved one’s estate, we are much more than an estate liquidation service. We manage the sale of high and low value items, and also use alternative disposal methods for all other items. Our approach is based on the value of respect for the legacy for the person who has spent a lifetime collecting the possessions in the home.
An estate auction is the sale of an estate’s items at auction. Typically, estate auctions only deal with valuable or rare items such as vehicles, fine art, jewellery, silverware, collectables, stamps, coins, and furniture. They’re also limited to a single sale method—an auction—which means that they don’t necessarily achieve the best price.
Estate auctions can also specialise. Two common examples are deceased estate jewellery auctions, and deceased estate furniture auctions, which only handle those particular types of items.