Tim'S Auctions

Tim Chapulis of Tim's Auctions was charming and available prior to closing the contract, but once the signatures were on the paper, he became difficult to contact and evasive in providing details or answering questions. We seemed more a nuisance to him than anything else, and in several of our  conversations he became argumentative  and dismissive when we disagreed with him. Prior to signing the contract he had told us that the only cost to us would be his percentage of the take. He was very evasive about discussing his percentage,  but revealed at the time of signing he would take 30% if the overall take was a certain amount(which proved to be double the actual take) or 40% if the take did not reach that specified amount.  We believe he purposefully picked an unreachable amount for the 30% offer. Then, when it came time to sign, he surprised us with the information that there would also be "day of auction" expenses that we would be responsible for, but refused to tell us what that amount might be. That turned out to be over $700-again a rather high amount. He later arbitrarily changed the agreed-upon time of the auction from 1:00pm on a Sunday to 6:00pm, without even telling us, which we are assuming resulted in a smaller turnout than might have been, since the sale went so poorly. He furthermore refused to allow family members to attend the auction, so we have no real way of knowing what happened there or what the real final prices were on items. He also promised that the auction would take  2-3 hours and would not impact the neighbors. Instead, we had complaints from the neighbors that it ran 5-6 hours, and disturbed them at midnight when the attendees picked up their purchases. 
After the auction, he put off our inquiries for 2 weeks, then went on vacation for a month, eventually sending the reconciliation (list of sold items and what he claimed were the sale prices) and our payment 2 weeks AFTER the forty days the contract specified, with no apology. The list of sold items he provided did not match our own list, in that numerous items were missing altogether and others were described so vaguely that we could not really tell what they were or whether they might match our list. Also, despite being clearly  labeled, over a dozen items of ours were credited (with payment) to the other family involved in the sale. We have tried several times to get a better accounting from him, but three months after the auction he continues to either be evasive or ignore us entirely. The contents of a huge, three-story condo filled with two families' worth of furniture, including numerous antiques, several large carpets, two sets of silverware, china, a wall of old books including first editions, and many other items, ended up vanishing into about $9,000, of which Tim received 40 percent. (This does not include all the things that are still unaccounted for.) In fact, we tried twice through emails to account for some of the missing items, and he did not reply to the emails.
We  found him to be sloppy and careless with the details of our contract and the sale, and not particularly sympathetic to us. It's also clear that we share some blame ourselves in agreeing so hastily to his contract.  We were inexperienced in this area and did not know to look for the many traps we fell into.  We hope that our experiences can help others, because there ARE things you can do better than we did, whether dealing with Tim or someone else. FIRST, insist that family members be in attendance at the auction, and ignore any excuses the auctioneer may give you to do otherwise. If he refuses, hire someone else. SECOND, compile your own list of items, typewritten, then give that list to the auctioneer and insist that the SAME list come back with everything on it accounted for. Do not allow the auctioneer to just make up his own list. THIRD, insist on having ALL expenses specified in detail at contract signing. FOURTH, do what you can to publicize the auction yourself, to improve the turnout. As far as we could tell, Tim relied solely on his website, which apparently didn't reach a lot of people, and did no other publicizing that we are aware of.
We hope this helps. Clearing out a house after a death in the family is already a hard time for everyone involved, so there's no reason why anyone should in addition have to go through the angst of dealing with a gladhanding huckster like Tim Chapulis.