Land that fails to sell at auction: what happens next and how to find it

What happens when a lot does not sell

Every lot at auction has a reserve, the lowest price the seller will take, usually within ten per cent of the guide. If bidding stops below it the lot is unsold. Nothing else changes that day. The seller still wants to sell, the legal pack is still on the auctioneer's site and the auction house is usually still instructed for a period after the sale. During that period it will put offers to the seller and, if one is accepted, exchange on the auction terms or on ordinary conveyancing terms, depending on the house. Auction people call this the post auction sale and the lot is marked sold after when it goes through.

Three other things can happen. The seller withdraws the lot and sells elsewhere. The lot is relisted in the next catalogue, sometimes with a lower guide. Or the seller sits on it. The first few weeks after the sale are the buyer's moment, because the seller has just had the market's answer and the auctioneer wants a fee.

Why land goes unsold

• Price. A guide set on a hope of planning, not on the land's value today. Bidders who have read the plan will not pay for permission that does not exist.
• Access. No frontage to an adopted road, a shared drive with no right to improve it or a visibility splay that cannot be achieved. Access is the first thing a developer checks and the first reason they stay away.
• Title. A covenant against building, a ransom strip, an unregistered part or a right of way through the middle. All in the legal pack, all discovered the night before.
• Planning. Green Belt, a conservation area, flood zone 3, a refusal on the file. Many of those are reasons a developer with time can answer. None of them helps a buyer who needs to build next spring.
• The lot itself. An odd shape, a sliver, a strip of woodland, a plot sold without the services it needs. The catalogue made it sound like a site and the plan says otherwise.

Each of those is a reason for most bidders and an opportunity for the one buyer who can solve it. That is why we watch unsold land rather than land with planning: the competition is thinner and the seller has just learned what the room will pay.

How to find unsold land lots

1. The auction house's own results. After every sale the house publishes results by lot. Unsold lots are usually marked as such or left without a price. Most houses list land under its own heading, so the reading is quicker than it sounds.
2. A platform that tracks the auctions. Estately indexes the lots in the catalogues it tracks, carries a status for each one and lets you search by status, so a search for land marked unsold is one query rather than a round of the houses. Its Playbooks go one step further: a saved search that sends an alert by email, WhatsApp or webhook when a matching lot closes unsold. That is how we do it. Our case study walks through the set up. The service is free for your own investing.
3. The auctioneer's land team. Ring them the day after the sale. Say what you buy, where and at what size. They will tell you which land lots did not sell and what the seller is now thinking, because an offer in hand is worth more to them than a relisting.

Making a post auction offer

The offer goes through the auctioneer, in writing, with proof of funds and your solicitor's name. Offers at or near the reserve are often taken seriously in the first fortnight. An offer well below it is taken seriously once the house has rung round its own list and found nothing, often weeks three to six. Say whether you are buying unconditionally or subject to something. Auction sellers expect unconditional and a conditional offer on land must be explained: what the condition is, how long it runs and what the seller gets for waiting. For land that needs planning the honest structure is often an option or a conditional contract rather than a purchase. The auctioneer can put that to the seller like any other offer.

Be ready to exchange quickly. Many houses hold the buyer to auction terms on a post auction sale: exchange on the day the offer is accepted and completion in twenty or twenty eight days. Have the legal pack read before you offer, not after.

What to check before you offer

• The legal pack, all of it. Title, plan, searches, special conditions and the seller's replies. Special conditions can put the seller's costs, arrears or a buyer's premium on you. A solicitor reads the pack before any offer.
• The planning status, at the council. A catalogue's line on planning is what the seller told the auctioneer. Read the council's register for the site and its neighbours, the local plan allocation, the flood map and any tree preservation order. A refusal is a list of reasons and the decision notice says which can be answered.
• The access, on the ground. Stand at the gate. Measure the frontage. Look at the visibility both ways. Find out who owns the verge between the land and the road.
• The boundary against the plan. Walk it with the title plan in hand. Auction plans are small and land sold by auction is often part of a larger title.
• Services. Water, drainage and power to the boundary or not. If not, the cost of bringing them.

The developer's arithmetic for what the land is worth with planning is on planning and value. Estately's own guide to buying land at auction covers the auction room side, from registration to the fall of the hammer.

If it is your land that did not sell

The auction told you something useful: the room would not pay for planning it could not see. That does not mean the land is worth only what was bid. It means the planning case has to be made before the value can be paid. That is work a developer can do at their own cost under an option or a promotion agreement, with you keeping the land until planning is won. Our how it works page sets out the choice. If you would like a written view of what your land could be worth with planning, tell us the postcode and we will do the checks at our cost.