The removal deadline is part of the price
Storage fees, abandonment, and why the buyer who wins a great lot and cannot collect it has not saved any money at all.
Every week somebody wins a lot at a very good price and then discovers that collecting it costs more than the discount they just earned. This is entirely avoidable and it is always avoidable at the same moment: before you bid.
The deadlines are not uniform
- Vehicles, heavy equipment and IT: seven days from invoice.
- Restaurant and estate lots: five days. The landlord has already re-let the space and we are on their clock, not ours.
- Storage units: seventy-two hours. That one is set by the facility under the lien statute and there is no flexibility in it at all.
The clock starts at the invoice, which is issued at the hammer — not when you got around to paying it, and not when you next had a free Saturday.
What lateness costs
It accrues daily including weekends and it is payable before the lot is released. At twenty-one days the lot is deemed abandoned, we resell it, apply the proceeds to your storage bill, and invoice you for the shortfall. That last part is the one people do not expect: abandoning a lot does not end your liability, it converts it.
Three questions to answer before you bid
- Which yard is it in, and are you free during that yard’s hours? Gary is open two days a week. Two.
- What does it weigh and what does it need? South Loop has a forklift to 8,000 lb and a dock. Cicero is a ground-level yard: your trailer, your ramps, your straps, your back.
- Does it fit through the door it has to leave by? On restaurant lots this is the question that ends the most sales. Measure the walk-in box AND the corridor.
If you genuinely cannot make the window, call us before the deadline rather than after it. We can sometimes work something out in advance. We can never work anything out retrospectively, because by then the space is already gone.
The honest summary
Add the truck rental, the fuel, the help you will need to load, and a realistic view of your own weekend to your maximum bid before you place it. A lot that is cheap at the hammer and expensive to move is not a bargain; it is a different, worse purchase that happens to have the same lot number.
This is a demonstration site. Bidding Floor, its staff, its lots and every figure quoted in this article are fictional, and nothing here is legal, tax or financial advice.