Britannia AuctionsPlant and construction equipment auctions in Leeds
Most of the yards south of Leeds are a few minutes from a motorway junction, and for a plant sale that is worth planning around. A buyer collecting a dumper from Stourton is on the M1 shortly after loading, and collection days are easier to run to time when lorries are not queuing in a street.
We sell plant from the yards in Hunslet and Stourton, and from the sites where contractors have finished a job. Excavators and telehandlers are the headline lots, but the sale is usually carried by volume: dumpers, rollers, compressors, generators, site cabins and the trailers that move them. Everything is sold by online timed auction with a viewing day at the yard, and bidding is open to the rest of the country.
If you have plant to sell, the contact form is the first step. We reply to every enquiry.
Selling from a yard by the M621
A plant sale runs from where the plant is, and in Leeds that is usually a yard on the southern belt. We catalogue on site, photographing each machine with the hour meter in shot and the serial plate legible. The viewing day is at the yard, so buyers can look at undercarriages and tyres, and the machines that can be run safely are started. Collection follows the close, in slots, so that one low loader is loading at a time.
The route out is checked for each yard. Kirkstall, off the A65 to the north west, runs to the motorway through the city, so an early collection window is often the answer there, but that is settled on site rather than assumed.
Where a yard has to be handed back before a sale can be organised, we can collect the plant and sell it from our own premises instead.
Reach, timing and reserves
Leeds sits in the middle of a lot of construction. Bradford, Wakefield, Huddersfield and Halifax each have their own contractors and hire yards, and Harrogate and York are down the A1(M), so a good deal of trade is close enough to inspect the lots before the sale closes. Bidding itself is online and open to the whole of the UK, and the catalogue is the same whether a bidder is in Hunslet or at the other end of the country.
The market follows the building cycle, as it does everywhere, and the date is worth a conversation before the catalogue is written. We will give you a view on the timing and on likely interest before you commit to it. Where a lease end or an insolvency fixes the date, the date is the date and we plan the rest around it.
Reserves on the main machines are agreed with you first, and we say plainly if we think one is set too high.
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 Leeds
- We are winding up a groundworks firm in Hunslet. Which lots carry a sale like that?
The lots that carry a sale like that are usually the ones with evidence behind them: hours that match the age, a service record, a current LOLER certificate on a telehandler, dumpers and rollers in working order, and site cabins that are dry inside. Attachments are worth listing separately with the pin size and the hitch type. Anything on finance is the funder's until the agreement is settled and needs their agreement before it can be listed.
- How do buyers collect from a yard that is still being used by another business?
We agree collection days with the yard owner before the sale opens and print them in the catalogue. Buyers book a slot, arrive with the right vehicle and load under supervision. Buyers organise and pay for the removal of their lots, including any handling equipment a machine that cannot be driven on will need, and each lot says what the machine takes. Nothing leaves without our release note, so the yard owner knows who has taken what.
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.