Vendor Statements

After your items have been sold at auction and you have received your post-sale advice, the next step is to get your vendor statement and receive payment from the auction house.

The vendor statement is a document that you will receive via email or post that lists all items that you consigned to a specific auction. Included in this document should be a breakdown of all charges, any special charge rates and your payment details.

In my previous articles, I cover vendor charges and what is regularly deducted from your proceeds. The main charge is vendor commission, which is a percentage of the hammer price that is taken by the auctioneer. This is the main way that auctioneers make money and run the business, in combination with the buyers premium. Besides vendor commission, there may also be a lotting fee, unsold charge and other charges listed in my other article on the subject. After all fees have been applied the total of the charges will be deducted from the hammer price achieved by the lots on the day. For example, if your lots made £1,000 hammer and the charges were £220 you would receive £780 in your bank account. One-off charges such as carriage will be applied at this stage too. Therefore, if you had a £100 bill +VAT (£120) for collection of your lots this would be deducted in the statement. Using the example above this would reduce the total by a further £120 leaving a total of £660. If you lots failed to make enough to cover the whole charge it may be deferred to a later statement once you have the funds to cover.

When you are consigning your lots to auction you may agree special charge rates for the items on that particular receipt. This may be a reduced vendor commission percentage or the removal of a lotting fee for example. If an agreement like this has been made the relevant deductions will be seen on the statement which will reduce the amount levied by the auctioneer. If you believe that you should have been charged less bring it up with the auction house in question. Please be aware that the receipt is, in essence, a contract so whatever you signed on the day is an agreement to the charges listed.

Now that all charges have been applied and deducted you are left with the total that will be paid to you, the vendor. The payout terms will have been listed in the original receipt. These tend to be around 14-30 days after the sale date. This is to ensure that the auction house has enough time to receive payment for the goods from the buyer, create and edit the statement applying the correct charges and to organise the payout. For the auction house to pay you they need to receive the funds from the buyers of your lots. If the auctioneer never receives payment they will usually cancel the sale and reoffer the lot(s) in the next available auction. The auction house will have taken your payment details when you consigned the goods to auction. They will then use these details to either pay you via bank transfer or by cheque depending on what details you left. Many auctioneers are starting to phase out cheque payments as they are slower and more expensive/problematic to process so in most cases you will need to provide your bank details. You will usually receive an email when the transaction has been processed.

Now that payment has been received that is the end of the process. If you have lots that were unsold and need to be re-offered then the whole auction process will begin starting with the pre-sale advice. For more information on buying or selling at auction please read the relevant articles in my auction guide.