Madam, - Of all the professions, that related to property is perhaps the most competitive in Ireland today. The suggestion by the Director of Consumer Affairs to the effect that a person selling a property for €10 million is paying 10 times as much to the auctioneer as a person selling at €1 million is patent nonsense (The Irish Times, July 6th). As often as not, four or five auctioneering firms are asked to pitch competitively for business.
Auctioneers have no responsibility for gazumping, as it is vendors who gazump and there is no evidence, beyond mere suspicion, that ghost bids are used to boost prices artificially. Although the issue of guide prices needs to be examined, one can only speculate when it comes to sales "under the hammer" because reserves are not disclosed.
Proof of widespread abuse, if it exists, can emerge only from a full, rather than anecdotal, comparison of the prices quoted post-auction for withdrawn properties and their guide prices. Such an analysis, for the first half of 2004, will be provided to the working group reviewing the profession for the IAVI as part of its formal submission.
The power to debar auctioneers from practising already exists, but courts have found cause to do so on only two occasions in the past 10 years. The record of auctioneers in handling client funds stands favourable comparison with other professions.
Reforms may well be needed, but there is an air of a sledgehammer cracking a nut about media coverage of this issue. - Yours, etc.,
ALAN COOKE, Chief Executive, Irish Auctioneers and Valuers Institute (IAVI),
Merrion Square, Dublin 2.