Six Firms Set to Auction Luxury Cars and Unclaimed Goods Nationwide
A fleet of luxury cars at Kenya Ports Authority
A series of pre-eminent auctions have been declared in Kenya, with a global assortment of unclaimed commodities such as luxury cars, motorcycles, and other miscellaneous items. The auctions are conducted after a series of gazette notices on October 3, which permit the auctioning of goods left behind or not collected from storage yards, garages, and even police stations.
The intended sales will be undertaken under the Disposal of Uncollected Goods Act (Cap. 38), which allows the auctioneers to dispose of property that has not been claimed within a prolonged duration. Six companies have already batched some items to be disposed of. The owners were given final notice to collect their property before it is sold to compensate for the outstanding costs.
Some of the companies involved include CMC Motors, which has placed an auction on some of the high-end cars that have been in its yard for weeks without being claimed. The advertisement specifically referred to a Land Rover Discovery, a Ford Ranger and an Audi Saloon, among others. CMC has given the owners 30 days to retrieve their cars or have them auctioned.
Several commercial vehicles have been listed by other auctioneers, such as Fancy Friends Auctioneers. They are lorries, matatus, and container units that have remained unattended for long periods in the absence of their owners making follow-ups.
Janice Investment Auctioneers also announced notices on several cars in garages around the nation, and Hariki Auctioneers in the unclaimed Isuzu NQR truck that had been parked in one of the storage facilities along the Kangundo Road, Nairobi.
The owners will have to pay all outstanding charges before they reclaim their property, such as accumulated storage charges, interests, costs of publication and other incidental expenses. Failure to do that within the mentioned time will lead to the sale of the items in order to cover the costs.A high proportion of goods being auctioned is represented by motorcycles. Police impounded many of them and abandoned them in many stations. Ikimwanya Auctioneers reports that some of the motorcycles are unregistered, others have been stripped to bare frames, and some are still in their original state but not collected.
One of the official notices stated that in case the listed items are not collected within a certain time frame, they will be auctioned publicly or tendered or privately, and the proceeds of the sales will be utilized to pay the cumulative expenses.
The increasing cases of unregistered vehicles and motorcycles within the nation are a cause of concern. According to many of the owners, they leave their property after being impounded by the police, involved in an accident or involved in a dispute over repair costs and towing fees. In other instances, lack of finances, like the inability to cover insurance or repair expenses, compels the owners to abandon their cars permanently. To others, recalls of a damaged or impounded car will be costly when compared to buying another one.
As the number of garages and police stations continue to get filled with the uncollected assets, the forthcoming auctions will likely clear up the storage facilities and allow the auctioneers to collect on the uncollected charges.
