How a Business Liquidation Works. Liquidating assets via an auction is a simple process. Most of the time, these auctions are a turnkey operation, meaning the auction house comes into a business and tags, identifies, and prepares each item for the auction. This makes it easy on both the buyer and the seller.

A sale at auction is nominally an offer by the owner to sell a property to the highest bidder without any qualification, unless the owner reserves to him or her openly at the time of the sale, the right to bid upon the property, or openly announces a price below which the property will not be sold.