How to register and bid at a property auction

You cannot walk into a property auction and raise a hand. Every serious auction house now requires bidders to register in advance, prove who they are and show where the money comes from, and the ones running online sales will not activate your account until the checks clear. Sort registration days before the auction, not the morning of it.

Registering with ID and anti-money-laundering checks

Registration means creating a bidder account, uploading photo ID and proof of address, and passing an anti-money-laundering check before you are authorised to bid. RICS's own consumer guidance points the same way: get professional advice and go through the legal pack, including the title information, searches and any leasehold documents, before you commit to a lot, which is worth doing before you register too, legal pack first, registration second, bidding last. You will usually also register a payment card for the deposit, and some houses take a refundable bidder security holding.

Four ways to bid

Bidding in the room still exists, but most auctions now run several channels side by side. Online bidding happens through the auctioneer's platform in real time. Telephone bidding puts a member of staff on the line who bids in the room as you instruct. Proxy bidding means you lodge a written maximum in advance and the auctioneer bids on your behalf up to that figure, going no higher. Savills auctions explain the three remote methods and require the forms back before sale day, so remote routes need even earlier registration than turning up would.

Have the money ready before the hammer

At a traditional unconditional auction the fall of the hammer is exchange of contracts. You pay a deposit of 10% of the purchase price on the day, plus the auction house's buyer's fee, and completion typically follows within 20 working days, around four weeks. On a £180,000 hammer price that is £18,000 of deposit and, taking Savills' published buyer's fee of £2,100 as an example, £20,100 leaving your account before you get home.

The remaining £162,000 is due within the month, which is why cash or pre-arranged finance matters; we cover the finance side in our separate article on bridging loans for auction purchases.

Set a hard limit and make it an odd number

Decide your maximum before the sale, in writing, with the buyer's fee and any stamp duty surcharge added to the sum so you know the true all-in figure. Then make the limit an odd number, £183,500 rather than £180,000. Most bidders think and stop at round numbers, so an odd ceiling lets you take one final bid past a rival who has mentally capped at the round figure below yours. If the room passes your number, stop. There is another auction next month, and the same lot sometimes reappears in it.

Guide price versus reserve price

Keep the guide price in its place while you set the limit. The guide is marketing; the reserve, typically set within 10% of it, is the figure that actually has to be beaten, and we unpick the two in our separate article on guide and reserve prices.

After the hammer

If your bid wins, you have exchanged. Under the standard auction conditions most houses use, the property is generally at the buyer's risk from that moment, so arrange buildings insurance the same day. Your solicitor then has a short run to completion, and any mortgage or bridging lender needs everything already in motion because a missed completion date puts your 10% deposit at risk.

The buyers who do well at auction are boringly prepared: legal pack read, finance agreed, limit written down, insurance quote saved. Get the legal side priced before you ever register, and you can compare conveyancing quotes for an auction purchase in a couple of minutes.