Selling at Auction

All property services providers in Ireland, including auctioneers and estate agents, must be licensed and regulated by the Property Services Regulatory Authority under the Property Services (Regulation) Act 2011, and you can verify any firm’s licence on the public register. Beyond licensing, look for a firm with a strong track record in auction sales of properties comparable to yours, a clear marketing plan, a reasonable and transparent fee structure, and a willingness to explain the process in plain terms. The auctioneer is legally required to issue you with a Letter of Engagement, also known as a Property Services Agreement, setting out the scope of the services and the fees, and you should read this carefully before signing.

The reserve price is the minimum price at which you are prepared to sell the property at auction. It is a private figure agreed between you and the auctioneer and is not disclosed to bidders. If the highest bid matches or exceeds the reserve, the property is sold and you are legally obliged to complete. If the highest bid falls short, the property is withdrawn and not sold at the auction, although the auctioneer will usually seek to negotiate a sale with interested parties immediately afterwards. The reserve should be set realistically, based on the auctioneer’s appraisal of the market, so that the property is attractively priced without being given away.

The guide price is a public figure included in the marketing material to give bidders an indication of where the reserve is likely to sit. It is not a valuation, and it is not binding. As a matter of good practice, the reserve will not typically exceed the guide price by more than 10%, so bidders can use the guide to judge whether the property is within their budget. The guide price can be adjusted during the marketing period in response to the level of interest received.

A market appraisal is the auctioneer’s professional estimate of the likely selling price of your property, based on its location, size, condition, planning status, and recent comparable sales. It informs the setting of both the guide price and the reserve, and it helps you form realistic expectations of what the auction is likely to achieve. A good auctioneer will support the appraisal with evidence from the Residential Property Price Register and from their own recent sales, and will explain the assumptions behind the figure they propose.

Yes. It is a legal requirement to have a Building Energy Rating certificate in place before a property is advertised for sale or rent in Ireland, and the certificate and advisory report must be included in the legal pack. If you do not already have a valid Building Energy Rating, the auctioneer or your solicitor can arrange for a registered assessor to carry out the assessment before marketing begins.

Yes. A Contract for Sale at auction becomes binding the moment the hammer falls, with no opportunity to revisit the terms or add further warranties, so the contract and the legal pack must be complete, accurate, and properly drafted before the property is offered for sale. A solicitor prepares the pack, drafts the Contract for Sale and any special conditions, responds to pre-auction enquiries, and closes the sale. Attempting to sell at auction without a solicitor risks delays, failed auctions, disputes with the successful bidder, and potential claims for misrepresentation after the sale.

If bidding does not reach the reserve, the property is withdrawn rather than sold. The auctioneer will usually try to negotiate a sale with the highest bidder, or with other interested parties, in the hours and days after the auction. If a sale is agreed in that way, the Contract for Sale in the legal pack is then adopted, with the price and completion date adjusted by agreement. If no post-auction sale is agreed, you can consider re-entering the property in a later auction or moving to a private treaty sale.

As a rough guide, the preparation of the legal pack and the marketing period typically run over six to eight weeks before the auction, and completion follows within 28 days of the auction itself, unless the contract provides for a different closing period. Distressed sales, executor sales, and sales involving complex title issues can take longer, because additional work is needed to prepare a legal pack that bidders will be willing to rely on. We will give you a clearer timetable once we have reviewed the title and the wider circumstances of the sale.