Britannia AuctionsPlant and construction equipment auctions in London
London plant is small and the sites are smaller. A basement dig behind a terrace, a rooftop extension, a fit out in the City. The machines that do that work are micro and mini excavators, tracked dumpers, hoists, scissor lifts and generators that fit through a doorway. There is no compound on a central London site to hold them once the job ends, so they go back to a yard in Park Royal or Brimsdown, and that is where we sell them from.
We sell by online timed auction. Where a yard cannot take a viewing day or a week of collections, we collect the plant and sell it from our own premises instead, and for a London contractor that is often the simpler answer.
Send a list through the contact form. Tell us where the plant is and whether the yard has a gate a lorry can use.
Permits before the lorry moves
Moving plant inside the M25 is a paperwork job first. Lorries over 12 tonnes need a Direct Vision Standard permit, and every collection vehicle has to be compliant with the Low Emission Zone. We tell buyers that in the catalogue and we ask them at collection. A haulier who turns up with the wrong lorry does not collect.
Because of that, a yard with a gate on an A road, or our own premises, is often the sensible place to run a London sale from. Park Royal is off the A40 and the North Circular, Brimsdown holds the heavier yards along the Lea Valley, and Dagenham Dock and Barking have yards off the A13, but the gate, the turning space and the road outside are checked at each one before anything is listed.
Every lot carries a note on how it leaves the yard.
Small machines that never see a compound
A London contractor's fleet is compact because it has to be. Micro excavators that go through a front door, one tonne dumpers, conveyor sections for basement muck, hoists and mast climbers, and scissor lifts for the fit out trade. Kit of that kind is used the same way in the rest of the country, and bidding is online and open across the UK, with the trade at Croydon, Romford, Watford and Slough close enough to inspect the lots before the sale closes.
What a compact machine makes depends on its hours against its age, its condition, its service record and whether the type is still in everyday use. A machine that has stood in a yard for a year with no service is a different lot from one that came straight off a job, and London yards are expensive places to leave a machine standing.
Reserves are agreed with you before the sale opens, and we say plainly if we think a reserve is 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 London
- Our plant is in a yard on a residential street in Wembley. Can buyers even get a lorry to it?
Often it cannot, and we would rather know that at the start. We look at the street, the gate and the turning space before the sale is planned. Where a lorry cannot load safely, the arrangement is agreed for that yard, whether that is walking the tracked machines out to a loading point with ground protection down, a trailer behind a van for the small plant, or collecting everything in one go and selling it from our own premises. The street then sees one lorry rather than twenty.
- Does the Low Emission Zone put buyers off bidding on plant in London?
It puts off the ones who have not planned for it, and the rules are in the catalogue so that nobody is surprised at collection. Buyers inside the M25 tend to run compliant vehicles already, and a buyer from further out can hire a compliant haulier. Transport is one of the things a bidder prices in, along with condition, specification and how easily the machine comes out of the yard.
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.