Britannia AuctionsPlant and construction equipment auctions in Aberdeen
Plant in Aberdeen is yard plant more than site plant. The service companies and fabrication yards at Altens and Tullos run heavy forklifts, big telehandlers, generators sized for offshore test work, compressors, containers and cabins, and the drilling and equipment firms at Dyce run the same. When the oil price turns and a company consolidates two yards into one, that equipment is surplus and it has to be dealt with.
Construction plant is here too. The bypass and the harbour extension at Nigg Bay were large civils jobs, and the contractors who worked them have excavators, dumpers, rollers and compaction plant in yards across the city.
We sell both by online timed auction, from the yard where the plant stands or from our own premises, depending on the lots, the yard and the timetable. The auction is online and open to buyers from every part of the UK. The contact form is the start.
Yard plant from the service companies at Altens
A service company yard is a plant sale with a difference. The machines are heavy for their type. Forklifts of ten tonnes and more, telehandlers with the capacity to lift subsea equipment, generators and compressors built to offshore specifications, and cabins and containers by the row. Much of it has low hours because it has worked in a yard rather than on a site.
That kit suits two kinds of work. Yard work of the sort done at Altens and Tullos, and out at Westhill and Kintore, and marine or offshore work in other ports, which an online catalogue reaches wherever the bidder sits. We describe each machine with its capacity, its hours, its year and its certification, and we photograph the plate and the test tags, because a buyer who cannot inspect in person bids on what the catalogue shows.
Containers and cabins are lotted separately. A buyer who wants a generator does not want a row of twenty foot boxes with it.
Routes out by road and by sea
Aberdeen has a road route out and a sea route out. Heavy forklifts and generators are the kind of plant marine and offshore work uses, and the harbour, with the south harbour at Nigg Bay, gives a machine a way to leave that a low loader alone does not. Bidding is online, so the catalogue is open wherever the buyer sits.
For the road, the route out is checked at the site visit. What vehicle can reach the gate, whether there is room to turn, where a machine can be loaded from and what the ground will take. The answers go in the catalogue against each lot, so nobody sends the wrong lorry. The trade at Stonehaven, Inverurie, Ellon, Banchory and Portlethen is close enough to inspect the lots before the sale closes.
Construction plant from the civils jobs is catalogued the same way. A machine on finance, hire purchase or lease belongs to the funder until it is settled, so we check the position on every machine before anything is listed.
What these sales can include
- Excavators and mini diggers
- Dumpers and site dumpers
- Telehandlers
- Generators and lighting towers
- Compressors and breakers
- Rollers and compaction equipment
- Site cabins and welfare units
- Scaffolding and access equipment
- Concrete mixers and pumps
- Buckets, quick hitches and attachments
- Plant trailers
- Surveying equipment and small tools
- Fuel bowsers and tanks
How the auction works
Each machine is a lot with a full description, photographs and the hour reading. Bidding runs online for a set period, usually one to two weeks, and lots close in sequence. A bid in the last minutes extends the close for that lot.
Plant is offered as seen under the auction terms, and buyers are expected to inspect before bidding. The buyer pays the hammer price plus a buyer's premium, with VAT charged where it applies and shown separately on the invoice. Payment is required before removal.
Buyers arrange and pay for the removal of their lots within the agreed window. What that takes depends on the machine: wheeled plant with road registration can be driven away, and tracked or heavy machines go on a low loader. Nothing leaves the site until it is paid for and signed out.
The plant and construction equipment auctions page covers what buyers want to know, finance and ownership checks, where the sale runs from, reserves and the market, alternatives.
Questions about selling in Aberdeen
- Our generators were built to an offshore specification. Does that help or hurt at auction?
It helps with the right buyers and means nothing to the wrong ones. A general contractor wants a set that starts and runs and has no use for the zone rating. An offshore or marine buyer looks for the specification and for the certificates that go with it. We describe the set fully, with its rating, its hours, its fuel type and its current certification, and the online catalogue puts it in front of both. The specification counts for more when the paperwork is with the machine than when it is only described.
- We are consolidating two yards into one. Can you sell from the yard we are giving up while we carry on in the other?
Yes. That is the usual shape of a consolidation sale. The yard being closed becomes the sale site, with viewing day and collection there, and the working yard is not disturbed. We catalogue everything that is not moving to the new yard, including the cabins and the racking, so that the old yard is handed back empty. If the lease on the old yard ends before a sale can be run from it, we collect the plant and sell it from our own premises instead.
More questions about plant and construction
Related services
Guides
- How used machinery is valued
Buyers pay for what a machine will do for them, less what it costs to get it out and running. This guide explains how make, hours, tooling, demand and removal cost feed a guide price, and why that price is not book value.
- Selling a commercial vehicle fleet
Fleet sales turn on paperwork as much as on price. This guide covers the V5C, MOT and plating documents, clearing finance before listing, keys and livery, recording mileage and tachograph data, and how to defleet in batches while still trading.