Britannia AuctionsFactory and workshop clearance in Milton Keynes
Most units in Milton Keynes are modern, so the lease sets the clearance rather than the building. A lease on a new shed will often ask for it back in the condition it was let: racking out, bolts ground flush, partitioning removed, walls made good and the floor to the schedule. That is a bigger job than it looks from the mezzanine, and the detail comes off your lease and the landlord's schedule.
The contents vary. Motorsport and automotive firms on Knowlhill and Kingston, and the engineering units at Wolverton Mill, leave fabrication plant, machining centres, dynamometers, composites ovens and a lot of measuring kit. Electronics and technology firms leave test benches and clean production areas. The sheds at Magna Park, Tongwell and Mount Farm leave racking and handling equipment in volume.
We auction the lot online, and the strip out can be arranged afterwards where agreed.
Motorsport and electronics kit and who bids for it
A race engineering workshop can hold equipment that was bought recently and is still current, which is part of what makes it worth cataloguing in detail. Five axis machining centres, CMMs, composites ovens, autoclaves, fabrication benches, welding sets, dynamometers and the tool cabinets suit other race teams and engineering firms, bidding runs online and is not limited to the area and abroad, and the trade along the A43 towards Silverstone and at Northampton, Bedford and Buckingham is well placed to attend the viewing.
A dynamometer is a rigging job with services attached, and the cell it sits in is strip out. Autoclaves are pressure vessels and go with their certificates. Any customer owned tooling, patterns, moulds or parts are separated first and returned.
Electronics firms on the same parks leave test equipment, ESD benches, pick and place lines and clean production areas. The clean room partitioning and the flooring come down with the strip out, and data bearing equipment is wiped with a certificate before sale.
Grid roads make collection short and strip out long
Collection is planned from whon our first visit shows: the yard, the turning space, the loading door and the road in. The grid roads keep lorry movements off residential streets, and the larger parks were laid out around HGV traffic. Junctions 13 and 14 of the M1 shorten the run for a buyer's vehicle from the north or from London.
The strip out is where the time goes. A modern shed at Magna Park or Tongwell has racking by the hundred bay, a mezzanine, conveyors, dock levellers and an office fit out, and all of it has to be removed and the fabric made good to the schedule of condition. Where it is agreed, a contractor programmes that work after the last collection and before the landlord's inspection.
Break clauses and lease expiries are the usual trigger. We work back from the date, and a dilapidations schedule in hand at the start saves argument later.
What these sales can include
- Production machinery
- Machine tools and tooling
- Pallet racking and mezzanines
- Compressors and air receivers
- Extraction and filtration systems
- Overhead cranes and hoists
- Forklifts and pallet trucks
- Workbenches, cabinets and stores
- Electrical switchgear
- Office furniture and IT
- Scrap metal and redundant stock
- Vans and site vehicles
The auction stage
We catalogue every saleable item on site, from the main machines down to grouped lots of hand tools and stores. The sale runs online as a timed auction with a viewing day at the premises. The buyer pays the hammer price plus the premium, with VAT charged where it applies and shown separately, and collects during an agreed window.
Lots are offered as seen under the auction terms, and buyers are expected to inspect before bidding. They arrange and pay for dismantling and removal. Where an item must be taken down carefully, such as a mezzanine or an overhead crane, the catalogue says so and it is part of the lot.
You keep the premises accessible, safe and powered until collection ends. We attend to release lots. The more that leaves through the auction, the less there is to clear at cost afterwards.
The factory and workshop clearance page covers clearance is a different job from a sale, everything that has to come out, the clearance stage, timescales and what slows them down, when a clearance is the wrong approach.
Questions about selling in Milton Keynes
- The landlord has sent a dilapidations schedule with the notice. How does that change the clearance?
It makes the plan clearer. The schedule tells us what has to come out, what has to be made good and to what standard, so the strip out is priced against it rather than guessed. Items the schedule treats as tenant's fixtures, racking, mezzanines and partitioning for example, are sold in the auction as dismantling lots where they have value, and can be removed by a contractor where they do not and that is agreed. We send the schedule to the contractor with the site photographs before the catalogue is written.
- We are a race engineering firm and some of the parts and tooling belong to our customers. What happens to those?
They are kept out of the sale. On the first visit we go through the workshop with you and tag anything a customer owns, has paid for, has on loan or holds drawings rights over, and it is stored separately until it goes back. The same applies to a machine on finance or lease, which stays with the funder until the agreement is settled and needs their written consent. Only once title is clear do we catalogue. It takes an hour or two at the start and avoids a claim after the sale.
More questions about factory clearance
Related services
Guides
- How a commercial asset auction works
A stage by stage account of an online timed auction for business assets. It covers the asset schedule, cataloguing, viewing days, how bidding closes, buyer's premium and VAT, collection and how you get paid.
- Preparing machinery and equipment for sale
What to do before viewing day. Keep the machines that can be run safely available to demonstrate, isolate the rest, clean but do not repaint, find the tooling and manuals, and sort out access for removal.