Britannia AuctionsPlant and construction equipment auctions in Swansea
A lot of the plant hire in Swansea is small businesses. A yard on the Enterprise Park with a dozen mini diggers, some dumpers, a few trailers and a van is a common shape of fleet, and so are the contractors at Fforestfach and along Fabian Way whose contracts have ended. If you are retiring and selling the equipment rather than transferring the business, that is the sale we are most often asked about here.
A small fleet suits auction. Builders from Gorseinon, Neath, Llanelli and Ammanford are close enough to inspect the lots before the sale closes, where a well kept mini digger can be looked at properly, and online bidding is open across the UK.
We run the sale from your yard, with junctions 44 and 45 of the M4 close by, or from our own premises when the yard has to go back first. Start with the contact form.
A small hire fleet when the owner retires
If you are retiring and selling the equipment rather than transferring the business, the sale takes a particular shape. We go through the fleet with you, note the hours and the year on each machine, and establish which are on finance and which are owned outright. A machine on finance stays with the funder until the agreement is settled and can only be sold with their agreement. The hire desk, the workshop tools and the van go in the same catalogue.
Then we set a date. Where the sale is not urgent there is room to choose one, and we will give you a view on the timing and on likely interest before the catalogue is written. Bidding runs for a week or two, with a viewing day at the yard.
If you are willing to be there on viewing day, that helps. Where you can answer questions about a machine, a buyer has more to go on.
Reach from the valleys and the west
The buyers for plant sold in Swansea sit in a wide area, because the city is between the steel towns and the countryside. Neath and Port Talbot are close for the bigger excavators and the compaction plant. Ammanford and Pontardawe are the direction the mini diggers and plant trailers suit. Llanelli and Bridgend are along the M4, and a buyer from either end can be at the Enterprise Park or Fforestfach inside the hour.
That mix is why we lot a fleet machine by machine rather than in bundles. Someone who wants one mini digger and a trailer can bid on exactly that, and someone who wants six can bid on six, which a bundle does not allow.
The sale is online and open to buyers from any part of the country, so the older machines sit in front of dealers as well as the local trade.
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 Swansea
- We want to sell the fleet but keep the yard and carry on with a smaller business. Does that work?
Yes. We catalogue the machines you want to sell and leave the rest. The viewing day and the collection days are arranged so that they do not get in the way of what you keep running, and buyers only see the lots in the sale. It is a common shape of sale when a contract ends or a partner leaves. Tell us which machines are staying when we walk the site so that the catalogue and the reserves are built around the ones that are going.
- Do buyers from outside Wales really bid on a small fleet in Swansea?
They do, because the catalogue is online and a mini digger is the same machine in Swansea as in Swindon. A clean machine with low hours and a service record is priced on what it is rather than on where it stands, and an older one is priced on the work it needs. Local buyers have the advantage of seeing a machine on viewing day and collecting it the same week, and online bidding puts the same lots in front of everyone else.
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.