Selling with us

Valuations

Our valuers are available to offer free verbal valuations at the Auction Centre Monday to Friday 9am–5.30pm – no need for an appointment. If you wish to see a specific specialist, you can arrange an appointment either at the Auction Centre or at your own home. We can also arrange home visits for large items or collections.

You can use our Online Valuation Form for a quick valuation through our website – please include as many details as you are able for a more accurate appraisal.

We offer regular specialist Valuation Days where you can speak to our resident expert in particular departments.

We are also qualified to prepare formal valuations for the purposes of Probate, Insurance and Family Divisions. Please contact our offices for more information, scale of fees, or to make an appointment.

Fees

Our Vendors Commission is 15% and there is an entry fee of £2.50 per lot, where appropriate low value items will be grouped together to form a more valuable lot.

Please note that whilst all fees include insurance and storage they are subject to VAT.

Sales

We hold over 35 sales per year ranging from three-weekly Home & Interiors, regular specialist auctions, and annual Wine, Port & Spirits auction. A full list of our departments is here.

Our valuers will be able to advise which auction would be most suitable for your items once they have seen them or spoken to you. Our minimum bid is £10 and single items expected to realise less than £20 may not be accepted for sale or will need to be offered with other similar items.

We are also happy to consider single-owner collections and have regularly held these sales with great success. Please contact our offices or you would like to discuss this option further.

Collection & Consigning by Post

We are able to collect items from across East Anglia and further afield. Carriage is charged at £50 per hour for two men and a large van and £65 per hour for three men (plus VAT). Where possible, we endeavour to arrange collections in the same area at a given time to reduce costs to clients. We can also offer fixed rates for large and important clearances. Please contact our offices to schedule a collection.

We can also arrange UK-wide collections for boxed consignments weighing up to 30kg – just contact us with the item and address details, we’ll send a courier, and you can sit back and wait for the auction proceeds to arrive in your bank account.

Property Clearance

We can arrange full house clearances working closely with Nice & Quick Property Clearance with whom we have carried out hundreds of house clearances over many years.

Following a valuation and clearance quote, items can be removed from a property without delay, minimising the risk of burglary should the property be left unattended. Staff and contractors will carefully pack all items and remove them for sale. Items will be held free of charge in secure storage prior to auction. Items of negligible auction value will be removed from the property and disposed of at the request of the consignor. For a full house clearance service where no items are suitable for auction, we recommend you contact Nice & Quick property clearance direct (www.niceandquick.co.uk); 07833 110 065 niceandquickinfo@gmail.com.

Things we cannot sell

There are some restrictions regarding what we are able to sell at auction – some of these are legal regulations and others simply due to the dictates of the market.
Overall, we do not sell the following: electrical items (unless only sold as decorative antiques), soft furnishings manufactured between 1950-1988 (all furniture manufactured after 1988 carries labels saying that it complies with the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire Safety) Regulations 1988), furs, modern clothing and flat-pack furniture.

Some taxidermy and endangered species are covered by CITES regulations, please contact us for further advice. You can read more about the role of CITES on their website.

Ivory – The new Ivory Bill which came into being in June 2022 effectively rules out the sale of almost all ivory. There are some exemptions for exceptional pieces and provable antique items with small components, but there is a cost involved to register these pieces; our valuers can advise further whether your piece may meet these criteria.

Estimates & Reserves

Our valuers can advise you as to what your lot is likely to achieve at auction, although, please remember that this is not an exact science and we are still regularly surprised by some hammer prices.

If you wish, you can fix a reserve which means that we will not sell your item below that amount. Reserves have approx 10% auctioneers discretion, although vendors are welcome to set firm reserves if they wish.

We do not accept reserves of less than £50 per lot.

You will be emailed a Pre-sale Advice note with a list of your lots with any applicable reserves and estimates before the auction. At that stage, you can contact our offices if you wish to apply or amend any reserves etc.

Unsold items

After the auction, you will be emailed a Post-sale Advice note with a list of your lots and the hammer prices achieved.

If your lots fail to sell, then you have various options. We can re-offer the lots in a future sale, you can collect the lots, or we can donate the lots to charity. However, if your lot fails to achieve our minimum bid of £5 then we reserve the right to dispose of the lot.

Please contact us immediately after the auction with your instructions.

Marketing

All of our sales are hosted online, both on our own website and at thesaleroom.com. They are also marketed in the local press and in specialist publications such as Antiques Trade Gazette, Diecast Collector etc.

Payment

Settlement is made directly into your bank account, or by cheque.

Bank transfers are processed and cheques are posted out 5 working days after Home & Interiors sales and 10 working days after all other sales, and therefore normally take another two days to arrive in bank accounts or on doorsteps.

Lacy Scott & Knight Anti-Money Laundering Policy

Lacy Scott & Knight is committed to counter money laundering activities and terrorist financing activities. In accordance with recent Anti Money Laundering regulations as set out by law in the EU Fifth Money Laundering Directive (5MLD), we will take all reasonable steps to ensure that we comply with correct procedure. We are registered and supervised by HM Revenue & Customs for compliance.

To meet these obligations and before any sale is concluded over €10,000 (approx. £8,000), we are obliged by law to verify the identity of clients buying or selling works of art with us.

Individuals:
We will ask for a copy of a valid photo identity (a passport, driving licence or national ID card) which shows the buyer's full name, date of birth, nationality and permanent residential address.

Companies:
We will require company details including proof of incorporation, directors and the ultimate beneficial owners.

Agents/adviser:
When acting on behalf of a buyer, we will require you to identify the ultimate buyer in addition to yourself.

Payments will need to be paid into a bank account held in the same name of the client named on the consigment form and match the identity documents given.

Any information you provide us with will be held securely and confidentially.