Buying at Auction: Reading the Legal Pack

• The deposit is due on the day: You pay it when the hammer falls, usually a percentage of the price (often 10%, sometimes with a minimum sum). Read the conditions for the exact figure and payment method.
• Completion comes quickly: The completion date is fixed in the contract and is often a matter of weeks. A standard mortgage application can take longer than that, so you need your lender to have accepted the property type, the lease and the timescale before auction day, or a fallback such as e.g. bridging finance, which is expensive.
• Your savings products may not move fast enough: If you plan to use e.g. a Lifetime ISA, the withdrawal goes through your conveyancer and takes time, and the account has its own rules, including a purchase price cap. Check the position with your provider and conveyancer well before the auction.

Importantly, first-time buyer stamp duty relief applies to auction purchases in the same way as any other. In England you pay no Stamp Duty Land Tax up to £300,000 and 5% on the part between £300,001 and £500,000; above £500,000 the relief is lost entirely. Every buyer must be a first-time buyer and the property must be your home.

1. Not reading the pack at all: The standard auction conditions are written on the basis that the buyer has made the usual checks. If you skip them, the risk is yours.

2. Reading an old version: Packs are updated right up to auction day, and an addendum can change the deal at the last minute. Check for updates the night before and again on the day.

3. Skipping the special conditions: This is where the extra costs hide: a buyer's fee, repaying the seller's legal and search costs, arrears of service charge or ground rent, and a short completion date. They are part of the contract you sign by bidding.

4. Treating the guide price as the price: Your real cost is the hammer price plus every cost in the special conditions, stamp duty, your own legal fees and any works. Set your maximum bid by working backwards from what you can afford in total.

5. Assuming the pack is complete: Missing searches, missing replies to enquiries or a missing lease are not neutral. They pass the risk to you, and a lender may refuse to lend on them.

6. Not reading the lease: For a flat, the lease decides how long you own it for, what you pay each year, what you must repair and whether you can make changes. A summary is not the lease.

7. Ignoring the title: Check who owns it, what rights come with it (access, drainage), any restrictions on use, and whether the plan matches what you saw.

8. Missing planning or building regulations: A flat created or extended without the right approvals can be hard to mortgage and hard to sell.

9. Buying a home with someone living in it: If the lot is sold with a tenant, you are buying their tenancy too. Since 1 May 2026, under the Renters' Rights Act 2025, a landlord can only recover possession on a specific legal ground. If you want to live there, buy with vacant possession.

10. Leaving the solicitor until the last minute: A conveyancer who reviews the pack the night before cannot raise questions in time. Instruct early and ask for a short written report.

Housing associations regularly sell flats at auction on a brand new long lease, and these lots attract first-time buyers. Take a one-bedroom flat in south east London that sold at a London auction for £380,000. The cost figures below are illustrative; on a real lot you would take each one from the pack.

• Hammer price: £380,000 (auction result)
• Buyer's fee (illustrative): £1,800 (auctioneer's terms, special conditions)
• Seller's legal and search costs (illustrative): £1,500 (special conditions)
• Stamp Duty Land Tax with first-time buyer relief: £4,000 (5% of the £80,000 above £300,000)
• Your own conveyancing (illustrative): £2,000 (your solicitor's quote)
• Total before any works: £389,300

If the deposit is 10%, you would need £38,000 ready on the day, with the balance and the other costs due at completion.

• The new lease itself: How long is the term, what is the ground rent, and is the full draft lease in the pack rather than a summary?
• Service charge: What share of the block's costs will you pay, what is the current budget, and is there a reserve fund?
• Major works: Are roof, window or fire safety works planned? On an older block, a large bill can arrive soon after you move in.
• Repairs: Who is responsible for the windows, the roof and the structure: you or the landlord?
• Restrictions: Can you let it later, keep a pet, or knock through a wall?
• Condition: Many of these flats are sold needing modernisation. Price the works on top of the total above.
• Your lender: Will your lender accept the property, the lease and the completion date? Ask before you bid, not after.

• Mortgage or finance agreed in principle for this property, this lease and this completion date
• Deposit funds ready to pay on auction day
• Solicitor instructed and the latest pack sent to them at least a week before the auction
• Special conditions read, and every extra cost added up
• Lease, title, searches and replies to enquiries all present and read
• Viewing done and checked against the plan and description
• Sold with vacant possession, if you plan to live there
• Maximum bid set from your total budget, and written down before you walk in
• Addendum and pack updates checked on the day

If any box stays unticked, the safest bid is no bid. Another auction will come along; a lost deposit does not come back, and neither does money paid to make good the seller's losses.