Elite Estate Liquidators LLC

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 7, 2016/02/24) */
Contact Name and Title: *** ***
Contact Phone: XXXXXXXXXX
Contact Email: ***@gmail.com
I did meet with both brothers and their wives in the mother's homeI brought the manager of my estate sale company, Elite Estate
Liquidations, LLC with me as the brothers and their wives were concerned whether there would be enough in sales to cover the minimum charges to conduct an estate sale and wanted the second opinionIt was agreed by myself and my manager that $or 30% (whichever was greater) would likely cover the labor involved in prepping and conduction the saleThis was discussed with both of the brothers (their wives in attendance), written into the contract prior to their signaturesElite estates did not have exclusive access to the home and knew that the family would be coming and going and would or could take things they felt were of sentimental valueWe cannot be held responsible when the client allows numerous others access to the home and we do not have control of who comes and goes or what they takeWe do not provide hour securityThe family knew this and it was discussed even though that is a common sense issueNote, we did not charge them commission on the value of items takenTrash was thrown away, broken items, chipped, damaged or soiled items not worth the cost to repair were thrown away** saw what was being thrown out every single day and had no complaints at allThis was discussed with the family and they knew there was a lot of trash and a lot of broken, chipped and damaged itemsThey understood that leaving a lot of glued, damaged, soiled items was not in the best interest of the saleTrash is not beneficial to leave laying about, not to mention trying to display it as if it had some king of valueIt is not our policy to close the doors and count down a money/check and credit card drawer at the sale siteWe have done it in the past, but it is rare, only when the staff member responsible feels very safeUnfortunately, hundreds of people see money being taken in at a sale, it is unnecessary risk to have one woman leaving the house after everyone else is long gone, carrying out the cash boxThe family was invited to sit right next to the cashier the entire time, write down every single thing sold, how much money was brought in cash, check and chargeThey are not allowed to write down credit card numbers or checking account information, just the amount of sale & what was soldAt least one family member was in attendance the majority of the time on both days of saleThey were watching the cashier most of the time, watching people making payment, and yet they chose not to keep trackCompletely their choice whether to keep a list of what sold or for how much
Elite's policy is to NOT have a set discount for the second dayWe do not have a standard of 50% off or 25% offIt is dependent on what is left after the first day of saleSometimes very little of value is left and it is better to sell it for something than nothing and we do 50% offAgain, the family was involved in the decision of what the Sunday discount would be and agreed completely
The clients did contract with Elite Estate Sales, and in turn, we subcontracted with Heritage Estate SalesWe (like most estate sale companies) use individual subcontractors or companies rather than employees)We do however, utilize those persons or companies we have worked with over and over again with wonderful resultsOne of the brothers was over there everyday and every report he gave was glowing about how well the house was being set upHe had nothing but rave reviews for Krys, & for HeritageFYI Krys has been subcontracting with Elite for the last couple of yearsWe only use subcontractors on a job by job basisNobody working this prep or sale were new to Elite
Per the contract, Elite provided presale cleanup & set up, evaluation (pricing) & displaying of merchandise, labor cost for the saleWe did issue a settlement statement or "after sale accounting"
We understand and have compassion that one of the brothers was very upset about things going on with his mother that has nothing to do with the saleThe other brother did apologize for his brothers rude and discourteous treatment of our staff
We were notified that the family wanted to donate, sell or otherwise dispose of some of the items left in the home and not sold and wanted to take care of that themselves and would do the cleanout themselvesThat was their choice and we did let them know that there was no discount for choosing to not allow our staff to clean it out (we offer broom clean only, there complaint sounds as if they are claiming that we were going to have a housecleaning service in there and that was never going to happen on this job) as they were scheduled to do
We do appreciate all of the wonderful compliments that we did receive all along the way during set up and during the sale from the client (the one brother) that actually did keep an eye on all of the work performed on a daily basis and was at the sale to 90% of the time
Please contact me with where I should send a copy of the executed contract for your review