How We Work – Property Auctions

Initial Phone Discussion

We’ll start by having a discussion about your current property sales situation. The aim here is to find out whether selling at auction is genuinely the best way forward based on your circumstances.

For instance, we sometimes see that our fast house sale or quick estate agency options may work as better alternatives.

Please feel free to ask any questions you may have with regards to our auction process. We’ll never put the pressure on and appreciate that you may just be making enquiries.

Property Factfind and Valuation

Our sales executive will ask some headline questions regarding your property’s condition and other specifics. The more information you can provide here the better.

We’ll then be able to undertake detailed house valuation research and come back to you with recommended guide and reserve prices for auction.

Decide on Conditional or Unconditional Auction

Our recommended prices for auction often depend on how urgently you're looking to sell.

Some clients simply want to sell quickly or are looking for cash buyers only.  In these circumstances, the 28-day (unconditional) auction is the better option.

Others are happy to wait longer and open their property to retail buyers (i.e. those that will typically buy with a mortgage). Here, our 56-day sale would be the better option as we can still take a non-refundable deposit to secure the sale when the virtual hammer falls (and exchange of contracts happens after 28 days).

Suggested Guide and Reserve Prices

The guide and reserve prices are usually based on whether you choose our unconditional (56-day) or conditional (28-day) option.

Typically, as there is more time with the unconditional sale, we would normally suggest a guide price of 90% of the market value with a reserve of 85%. However, it’s not uncommon to see properties sell for 100% of their market value.

With our 28-day auction sales, we usually recommend a guide price of 85% and a reserve of 80% of the valuation.

Agent Viewing

We can visit the property 7 days a week at a time convenient for you.

Sometimes, especially if the legal pack is already prepared, it makes sense for us to take photos and produce a floorplan at the same time.  We can also organise the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) if necessary.

This means we can get your property listed on all the portals quickly.

RICS Survey

You are under no obligation to book a Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) valuation.

It can, however, sometimes encourage more potential bidders as more feel comfortable with proceeding and things are being kept transparent.

Sales Agreement

Once you are happy with everything, we will send you our auction sales agreement via email. This needs to be 'e-signed' by all owners for us to be able to move forward with the marketing of your property.

Set-Up Fee Payment

Property Solvers will require a set-up fee to get started on the auction process. We charge this amount as there is a lot of work behind the scenes. Note that, for an extra cost, you can opt to pay this fee upon completion.

Terms & Conditions / Legal and Operations Guides

We will also send you a copy of the terms and conditions (these are in line with 4th Edition of the ‘Common Auction Conditions’ reproduced with the consent of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors).

You’ll also receive copies of our legal and operations guides which run through all the necessary procedures that will be followed when selling at auction.

We are, of course, completely available to answer any of your questions.

Legal Pack

We rarely suggest moving forward with an auction sale without a legal pack in place.

Extra information will also be required if you're selling a tenanted, pre-repossession, inherited/probate or commercial property / land.

Omitting this key information often means that buyers will feel less confident about the purchase and bid lower (or not at all).blog

Property Solvers have conveyancing partners we can put you in touch with who offer competitive 'pay now' and 'pay later' options.

Please check out our propety auction sellers legal guide which explains how things work in this regard.

Photography, Floorplan and EPC

If this process was not undertaken during our initial viewing, we’ll get these organised with one of our professional partners in your area.

Please not there are no extra charges here (even for the Energy Performance Certificate if you do not have an up-to-date version).

We would also suggest preparing the property as best you can (check out our 101 tips to sell your property quickly).

Advertising for Auction

We take pride in providing high-quality listings and your property will be published on all the major portals to draw in the maximum amount of attention (see where we advertise). Rest assured, this is what we do best!

We typically recommend marketing the property for 21 days before starting the bidding process. However, we are happy to adjust this as circumstances dictate.

Viewings and Open Days

Our viewing experts are available 7 days a week to host viewings. In many cases, we run open days where we invite multiple buyers to view the property. This often serves to create a competitive environment when it comes to the bidding process.

Provided that you are comfortable with handing the keys over to us until completion, we are happy to take full control of this process to keep things completely hassle-free for you.

We will also make ourselves fully available to answer any questions relating to the property and can run second viewings when appropriate to do so.

Bidder Registration

By law, we are required to formally register potential buyers before allowing them to bid on our portal. This requires us to undertake full identification and Anti-Money Laundering checks to ensure that there is nothing untoward. Undertaking this process saves a lot of administrative hassle once the auction process concludes.

Let the Bidders Bid!

Prior to the bidding process we will send all qualified buyers our operations guide (different to the one sellers receive) and an explanatory video which explains the entire process to avoid any confusion. They’ll also receive regular reminder emails.

We typically allow a 48-hour bidding period and, in addition to continually monitoring progress, will make ourselves completely available to answer any questions from buyers (and yourself of course). You will also be able to see bidding activity directly on the portal. We will also advise you of any proxy bids – i.e. where buyers enter a maximum bid and we bid up to that amount on their behalf (similar to eBay).

We usually allow qualified bidders a 48-hour period to submit. There is no limit to the amount buyers can bid up to, we will be sending the alerts when their bids have been beaten.

This also means that the sale cannot be gazundered (i.e. see a drop).

SOLD!

At the end of the bidding period, the virtual hammer will fall and the sale price is confirmed. You will be able to see the final price on the portal itself but we will be getting in touch to confirm things as well.

We will also be communicating with the winning buyer to confirm the next steps, completing the Memorandum of Sale and moving things forward.

No Refund Reservation Fee

With both our 28-day and 56-day auctions, the buyer will be required to pay a non-refundable reservation fee of 2% + VAT to secure the property. We usually take a charge on all bidder’s debit/credit card and the money will be withdrawn from the winning bidder automatically. This avoids any confusion at the close of the auction.

Exchange of Contracts

One of the beauties of selling at auction is that, once the hammer has fallen, the chances of things falling through are slim to none.

With our 28-day (unconditional) auction, the terms and conditions state that exchange of contracts happens at the fall of the virtual hammer. This means that the buyer (unless otherwise agreed) must pay a deposit of 10% and complete on the sale within 28 days. Failure to do so could mean the loss of the reservation fee, deposit paid alongside other financial penalities and abortive costs.

Note that with the 56-day auction, buyers have 28-days to exchange contracts. Similar to the 28-day auctions, buyers will need to pay a non-refundable deposit and face heavy penalities if they were to withdraw from the sale.

Conveyancing

Although much of the legal work is already completed pre-auction, there will be some final processes to undertake. You will also be sent legal documents to sign to finalise the sale.