UK commercial property auction houses compared
UK commercial lots are spread across dozens of auction houses, each with its own catalogue, sale dates and fees. This page compares the 19 houses Cornerlot reads every morning, using their live catalogues: how many commercial lots each has today, when it sells next, what its lots are typically guided at, and what it charges the buyer.
It isn't a list of every UK auction house. It is the ones we read, with numbers nobody else puts side by side.
Key facts, 18 Oct 2026
- The 19 UK auction houses Cornerlot reads have 763 live commercial lots between them, 18 of the houses with at least one lot listed today.
- Future Property Auctions has the most live commercial lots (146), followed by Auction House UK (145).
- Buyer's fees on a £200,000 lot range from £1,500 to £7,200 including VAT, using each house's published standard fee (checked 15 Oct 2026).
- Savills: the median sale was 1.13× the guide across 37 published sale prices, and 68% of 88 lots offered sold.
- Allsop: the median sale was 1.08× the guide across 63 published sale prices, and 57% of 259 lots offered sold.
The auction houses we read, side by side
Sorted by live commercial lots, most first. Click a house to see its live lots in the Cornerlot lots browser. The fee is the house's published standard buyer's fee, checked 15 Oct 2026; many houses vary it lot by lot, so the legal pack always has the final figure.
| Auction house | Live lots | Next sale | Median guide | Buyer's fee | Fee on £200,000 | Sale to guide | Sold |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Future Property AuctionsMost lots in Scotland · 6 regions | 146 | 22 Oct 2026 | £99,500* | 2% + VAT, min £3,250 (usual; set per lot) | £4,800 | – | – |
| Auction House UKMost lots in Scotland · 11 regions | 145 | 19 Oct 2026 | £80,000 | £1,800 inc. VAT (usual; set per lot) | £1,800 | – | – |
| BTG EddisonsMost lots in East Midlands · 9 regions | 98 | 19 Oct 2026 | £150,000 | £1,650 inc. VAT (usual; set per lot) | £1,650 | – | – |
| SavillsMost lots in London · 11 regions | 75 | 20 Oct 2026 | £245,000 | £250 to £2,100 inc. VAT, by price | £2,100 | 1.13× | 68% |
| AcuitusMost lots in Yorkshire and the Humber · 11 regions | 51 | 29 Oct 2026 | £400,000 | £1,500 + VAT | £1,800 | – | – |
| Clive EmsonMost lots in South East · 4 regions | 47 | 5 Nov 2026 | £160,000 | £750 to £5,000 inc. VAT, by price | £1,750 | – | – |
| ShepherdMost lots in Scotland · 2 regions | 35 | 22 Oct 2026 | £75,000 | 2.4% inc. VAT, min £2,400 (usual; set per lot) | £4,800 | – | – |
| McHugh & CoMost lots in South West · 8 regions | 30 | 21 Oct 2026 | £15,000 | £500 to £1,500 inc. VAT, by price | £1,500 | – | – |
| StrettonsMost lots in London · 9 regions | 30 | 29 Oct 2026 | £370,000 | £1,000 to £2,000 inc. VAT, by price | £2,000 | – | – |
| Town & CountryMost lots in South East · 10 regions | 29 | 21 Oct 2026 | £175,000 | 3% premium + VAT, min £5,000 (usual; set per lot) | £7,200 | – | – |
| Auction House OnlineMost lots in North West · 9 regions | 22 | 20 Oct 2026 | £40,000 | £2,400 inc. VAT (usual; set per lot) | £2,400 | – | – |
| Hollis MorganMost lots in South West · 3 regions | 16 | 21 Oct 2026 | £175,000 | £1,500 + VAT | £1,800 | – | – |
| Seel AuctionsMost lots in Wales · 1 region | 12 | 27 Oct 2026 | £101,000 | 1.5% inc. VAT, min £1,500 (usual; set per lot) | £3,000 | – | – |
| Barnett RossMost lots in London · 6 regions | 11 | 22 Oct 2026 | £175,000 | £1,500 inc. VAT | £1,500 | – | – |
| Venmore AuctionsMost lots in North West · 1 region | 8 | 21 Oct 2026 | £100,000 | 1% + VAT, min £3,000 | £3,600 | – | – |
| AllsopMost lots in West Midlands · 4 regions | 4 | 11 Nov 2026 | £2,500,000 | £1,500 + VAT | £1,800 | 1.08× | 57% |
| CPN AuctionsMost lots in West Midlands · 2 regions | 3 | 19 Nov 2026 | £225,000 | £900 to £2,100 inc. VAT, by price | £1,500 | – | – |
| Paul FoshMost lots in Wales · 1 region | 1 | 21 Oct 2026 | £180,000 | 1.5% inc. VAT, min £1,500 to £2,400 | £3,000 | – | – |
| Maggs & AllenNo live commercial lots today | 0 | – | – | £1,800 + VAT | £2,160 | – | – |
Live lots: commercial lots in each house's published catalogues with a sale date today or later. Median guide: the middle guide price of those lots. *Future Property Auctions lists opening bids rather than guides. Fee on £200,000: the standard buyer's fee (and premium, where charged) on a £200,000 lot, including VAT. Sale to guide and Sold are shown only for houses that publish the price of at least 10 sales; a dash means the house doesn't, so we can't say.
Three kinds of house
National commercial specialists
Allsop, Acuitus and Savills run large catalogues of investment lots from across the UK: shops let to national tenants, offices, industrial units and ground rents. Their median guides are among the highest in the table, and Allsop and Savills publish results lot by lot, which is why they are the only two with sale figures above. Allsop's catalogue opens a few weeks before each sale, so its live count swings from almost nothing to a full catalogue.
National networks with regional rooms
Auction House UK and BTG Eddisons sell through regional teams, each with its own sales, so they show up in most regions. Town & Country runs a network of online auctions in the same way. These houses carry the bulk of the smaller lots: single shops, flats over shops, small industrial units and land.
Regional and local houses
The rest mostly work one patch. Strettons and Barnett Ross sell mostly London lots (see commercial property auctions in London), while McHugh & Co, also London-based, sells across England. Clive Emson sells mainly in the South East, with a share in the South West. Hollis Morgan and Maggs & Allen sell around Bristol, and Seel Auctions in South Wales. Venmore sells in Liverpool and Merseyside (see commercial property auctions in Manchester and the North West). Shepherd and Future Property Auctions sell across Scotland (see commercial property auctions in Scotland). The "Most lots in" line under each name is worked out from today's lots, so check it rather than our summary.
Room, live-stream and timed online sales
Most houses now sell by live stream: a scheduled sale with an auctioneer, bidding online, by phone or by proxy, and the hammer falls lot by lot. Timed online auctions, used by Future Property Auctions, Town & Country and Auction House's online sales, run for a set period with bids placed on the house's website, usually with an extension if a bid lands in the last minutes. Some timed sales use the Modern Method of Auction, where the buyer pays a reservation fee and has longer to complete instead of exchanging on the day. The lot page says which applies, and it changes the fee and the timetable.
An opening bid is not a guide. It is where bidding starts, and the reserve can sit well above it, so compare lots from Future Property Auctions with that in mind.
What the fee column doesn't tell you
The standard fee is only part of what you pay. The special conditions can add the seller's legal and search costs, arrears or VAT on the price, and then there is stamp duty (or Land and Buildings Transaction Tax in Scotland, Land Transaction Tax in Wales) and your own solicitor. Our guide to buying commercial property at auction goes through each cost, and our guide to commercial property yields in the UK shows how they cut a gross yield down to a net one.
Sale prices: what the two publishing houses show
Across every house that publishes prices, 95 of 100 priced sales went at or above guide, a median of 1.10×. Houses publish successes more readily than failures, so treat these as a sample, not the whole market. A house that doesn't publish prices isn't doing worse; we just can't see it.
Houses we don't read yet
Plenty of good houses aren't in our feed yet, including SDL Property Auctions, Pattinson and Network Auctions, and many local firms. Lots sold only through them won't appear on Cornerlot or on this page. The About page lists every house we read and how we read them.
How we get these numbers
Cornerlot reads each house's online catalogue every morning and keeps its commercial lots: guide, rent, yield, sale date, region and, after the sale, the result. The table counts lots with a sale date today or later. Buyer's fees come from each house's own published terms or lot pages, checked 15 Oct 2026, and are re-checked monthly. Sale-to-guide uses only sales where the house published the price. The numbers refresh every hour.
General information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Fees and conditions change and differ lot by lot: always read the legal pack before you bid.
Questions people ask
Which UK auction house has the most commercial lots?
Of the 19 houses we read, Future Property Auctions has the most live commercial lots in its catalogues today (146). The count changes every week as catalogues open and sales finish, so check the table on this page.
Do all auction houses charge the same buyer's fee?
No. Each house sets its own: some charge a flat administration fee, some a fee banded by price, and some a percentage buyer's premium, often with a minimum. Many set it lot by lot, so the legal pack and the special conditions of sale are the final word.
Which auction houses publish their sale prices?
Among the houses we read, Savills and Allsop publish enough sale prices for us to compare them with guides. Others mark lots sold or unsold without a price, or publish nothing.