We engaged Fine Estate to perform a Sonoma County Superior Court-ordered inventory and valuation of the personal property of a friend under conservatorship with extensive collections of jewelry, art, and other valuables. We were told that key staff at Fine Estate were well-acquainted with the conserved person and would be sympathetic and, we hoped, financially efficient in completing the work, understanding the high cost of memory care and the relatively young age of the conserved person. What a colossal mistake we made in entrusting this project to them.
Fine Estate seems to be purposefully deceitful and exploitative, grossly incompetent, or both. We believe they charged us above-market rates, padded invoices, and incorrectly billed us for the appraisal, packing, moving, storage, and consignment services they provided. No one was accountable for the accuracy of the appraisal or whether it met industry standards. There was never a clear answer to questions we raised, instead "we will need to get back to you on that," seeming like they made up rules and billing practices as the appraisal progressed. We are appalled by their total lack of professional ethics.
After reviewing the invoices, we found: a shocking 24 hours of charges for computer formatting of the appraisal document for $1560; padded expenses for the movers, sometimes over 40% of what should have been charged for packing and travel time; and an exorbitant flat rate for the appraisal of consigned items, with no substantiation of the cost. We spoke with other auction houses after we had engaged Fine Estate, and all agreed that their fees were outrageously high.
We believed they were reputable because their team had former employees from other well-known auction houses, but we were wrong. We found their work to be careless to the point of negligence. Items were damaged, missing, mislabeled, misplaced, and inventoried incorrectly or incompletely, often resulting in what we believe to be gross undervaluation. For example, one box was appraised with a value of $10 with the description "kitchen scale and linens" but beneath the linens were an assortment of approx. 40 pieces of sterling and silver-plated flatware. Another box that contained a set of fine crystal stemware was labeled "cookbooks" and valued at $25. Finally, the photographs they provided were low-resolution and often just a photograph of the items still in the box, so it was difficult, if not impossible, to match the actual contents of the box with the appraisal.
The valuations assigned to the consigned goods were artificially low, as their business model seems based on what their customers are willing to pay at their consignment shop, which operates monthly for a 3-day sale. We provided the receipt for one item that cost $3500, and Fine Estate appraised it at $150. Their appraisals are NOT fair market valuations, nor even secondary market valuations. Again, consigned goods are assigned much lower values to allow them to move inventory at their monthly sale. To wit, we had a collection of trade books, 60 boxes in total. The appraisal incorrectly included only 40 and valued the collection at $4k; at most, we would have received $2600 from the consignment. Instead, we found an independent buyer for the collection who paid us $25k.
We also caution any potential clients of Fine Estate to look closely at the contract to understand the consignment fee structure. We were shocked to learn how deeply consignment items are discounted and how quickly their prices are further reduced: the item is put for sale at the artificially low appraised value on Friday, and if it doesn't sell, it is discounted by 25% on Saturday. If it doesn't sell on Saturday, it is further discounted by 25% on Sunday. When an item valued at under $1000 sells, their commission is 50%. So, if an item valued at $100 doesn't sell on Friday, it's marked down to $75 on Saturday. If it doesn't sell on Saturday, it's marked down to $56.25 on Sunday. If it sells on Sunday, the consignor will only receive $28.12 of the $100 appraised value.
It's important to note how they've structured their 'refund' of appraisal fees on consignment items, too. It's customary with other firms that take goods on consignment to offer a 75%-100% refund on the appraisal fee for items consigned, but Fine Estate offers a refund on appraisal fees only if an item sells. This isn't clearly spelled out in the contracts we were given, and it seems to us an unfair and deceptive business practice that once again favors them over the consignor.
We tried earnestly to work with Fine Estate to resolve our differences, but we could not reach a reasonable resolution. (Some minor adjustments were made to our invoices after we questioned them, but we remain wholly dissatisfied.) We are posting this review to warn others to beware of their nefarious business practices. read more
