Allsop Auction Review 2026: Fees, Results, Verdict

Who are Allsop?

Allsop LLP is a London-headquartered property consultancy whose own website describes it as the UK's largest property auction house, and whose footer marks 120 years of trading. If you have spent any time researching how to sell a property at auction, Allsop will have come up. It is the name most often used as shorthand for the traditional UK auction room.

The firm is far more than an auctioneer. It runs investment and development advisory, build-to-rent, valuation, business rates, lease advisory, planning and residential letting arms. The auction business sits inside that consultancy, which is part of why it attracts institutional and portfolio sellers rather than individual homeowners.

This review is written from a Scottish seller's point of view. It is not a hatchet job — Allsop is a serious, well-run auction house with published results that stand up. The question this page answers is narrower and more useful: does that particular machine suit your particular property, in Scotland, in 2026?

How an Allsop auction actually works

Allsop uses the traditional, unconditional method of auction. Contracts are exchanged on the fall of the hammer. The successful bidder is immediately and legally committed, pays a deposit that day, and must complete within the period set out in the conditions of sale — commonly around 20 working days. There is no cooling-off period and no route back out.

Before bidding, buyers must register and lodge what Allsop calls bidder security. That is a sum held to prove the bidder is genuine, returned if they are unsuccessful. Auctions are run as live-streamed events with telephone, proxy and internet bidding, so the room is effectively national and international rather than local.

This is a different animal from the modern method of auction, where the winning bidder pays a reservation fee and then has a longer window — typically 28 days to conclude and a further 28 to complete. It is different again from how a Scottish sale normally works, where nobody is committed until the conclusion of missives. The table sets the three side by side.

Allsop fees: what is actually published, and what is not

Here is where an honest review has to be careful. Allsop's own selling FAQ says plainly that a seller pays an entry fee to cover cataloguing, marketing and advertising, plus commission charged after the property sells, plus solicitor fees. What it does not do is publish the percentages. There is no rate card on the site, and any specific figure you read elsewhere is somebody's estimate unless it comes from your own written proposal.

That matters for two reasons. First, the entry fee is payable whether or not the lot sells, so an unsold lot is a real cash loss. Second, without published rates you cannot compare Allsop against another route on paper — you have to ask for terms in writing and read them.

On the buying side, Allsop charges a buyer's administration fee on top of the hammer price. A tiered structure of roughly £1,800 including VAT on lots up to £99,999 and around £3,600 including VAT at £100,000 and above is widely reported across auction commentary sites, but we could not verify current figures on Allsop's own published pages, so treat it as indicative only and check the conditions of sale and the legal pack for the specific lot. The table below lists the cost lines rather than pretending to precise numbers we cannot source.

A buyer's fee is not a scandal — most auction houses charge one — but it is money the bidder must find, so it comes out of what they are willing to bid. When you compare routes, compare the net figure in your hand, not the headline. Our page on what it costs to sell at auction in Scotland works that arithmetic through, and modern method of auction fees covers the reservation-fee model.

One 2026 point worth knowing as a consumer: the unfair commercial practices provisions of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 came into force on 6 April 2025, with the CMA's final guidance published on 4 April 2025. Among other things they outlaw drip pricing — advertising a headline price and then adding unavoidable mandatory charges late in the journey. If any auction house is vague about compulsory fees, that is now a live consumer-law issue, not just poor manners.

Allsop's 2026 results, in its own numbers

Allsop publishes its auction results, which is more than many competitors do, and the 2026 numbers are strong. These are Allsop's own published figures as reported through the year.

Two honest readings come out of that table. The first is that Allsop's scale and sell-through are genuinely good: an 84–90% success rate is a strong auction result, and the commercial book is running ahead of 2025 on both value and sell-through. The second is that even at that standard, a meaningful share of lots does not sell on the day — the May residential sale converted 77%, meaning roughly one lot in four went unsold. If your reserve is wrong, scale does not save you.

Note also the shape of the residential book: 208 lots in March, 250 across two days in April, 158 in May. That is a high-volume investor catalogue, not a boutique service for individual homeowners. It is a strength if your property is investment stock and a weakness if you need someone to sit with you through a difficult sale. If your lot does not sell, read what happens when a property does not sell at auction.

Allsop pros and cons for a seller

Does Allsop sell property in Scotland?

Allsop operates UK-wide in principle and will consider stock from anywhere, but its published positioning is English. Its own popular locations pages list Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Nottingham and Sheffield — not one Scottish city. That is not an accusation; it is simply what the firm chooses to market, and it tells you where its buyer demand is concentrated.

The legal gap matters more than the geography. Scottish conveyancing is a separate system. Sales become binding at the conclusion of missives rather than exchange of contracts. A Home Report with a RICS Single Survey and valuation is compulsory before most properties can be marketed. Title is registered in the Land Register of Scotland, and buyers, solicitors and demand are local. An auction programme designed around English contracts, English legal packs and an investor catalogue is not the natural home for an ordinary Scottish house.

Our approach is built the other way round: a Scotland-first buyer network of around 11,000 registered, cash-ready buyers, missives-aware conveyancing, and a SaleLock Guarantee under which the successful buyer commits with a 10% non-refundable deposit and completion normally follows within about 28 days. There is no fee to the seller and no upfront entry cost — if it does not sell, it has not cost you anything. That is a materially different risk profile from an entry fee paid before the catalogue is even printed.

How long does an Allsop sale take?

Plan on roughly six to ten weeks end to end. Entries close several weeks before the sale so the catalogue can be produced and marketed, the marketing period itself typically runs three to four weeks, and completion follows around 20 working days after the hammer. The variable that catches sellers out is not auction day — it is the legal pack.

• Weeks 1–2: valuation and appraisal, terms agreed, entry fee paid, reserve and guide price discussed.
• Weeks 2–4: your solicitor prepares the legal pack. Missing title documents, absent building warrants or unresolved burdens stall everything here.
• Weeks 4–7: catalogue published, marketing and viewings, pre-auction offers may arrive.
• Auction day: binding on the fall of the hammer, 10% deposit paid.
• Following 20 working days: completion.

If you are unclear what goes into the pack, read what is in an auction legal pack in Scotland and guide price vs reserve price, because getting the reserve wrong is the single most common cause of an unsold lot.

Who Allsop suits — and who should look elsewhere

Allsop is the right call for commercial investment lots, tenanted residential blocks, ground rents, portfolios and higher-value or unusual assets with genuine national or international appeal. If institutional investors are your buyer, you want to be in front of institutional investors, and Allsop's catalogue is where they look.

It is a weaker fit if you are an individual selling one Scottish home, especially a modest-value one where a buyer's fee of a few thousand pounds is a large percentage of the price and will visibly dampen bidding. It is also a weaker fit if your circumstances need speed and certainty without an upfront gamble: facing repossession, dealing with an inherited property, splitting assets after a separation, or holding a property that is hard to mortgage.

Alternatives to Allsop

Nobody should choose an auction house from a single review. The realistic alternatives fall into four groups, and the right one depends less on brand and more on what your property is.

• Other national traditional auctioneers, such as Bond Wolfe — see our Bond Wolfe review. Same unconditional model, different regional strengths.
• Scottish auction houses, including Prime Property Auction. Local demand, Scots-law handling. Our Scottish auction companies compared page sets them out side by side.
• Modern method of auction, which widens the buyer pool to mortgage buyers but shifts a large fee onto the buyer — see the pros and cons.
• A direct cash-buying company, fastest of all but typically well below market value — the arithmetic is in do cash house buyers offer less in Scotland.
• The open market with an estate agent, which can achieve the highest price but leaves you exposed to a buyer withdrawing before missives conclude.

Risks and pitfalls to watch with any auction house

• Paying an entry fee on an unrealistic reserve. If the reserve is above what the room will bear, you have bought marketing, not a sale.
• Assuming the guide price is a valuation. It is a marketing figure. The reserve is the number that governs whether your lot sells.
• Forgetting the buyer's fee comes out of your price. On a £70,000 flat, a four-figure buyer fee is a visible percentage and bidders subtract it before they raise a hand.
• A thin or late legal pack. Bidders discount uncertainty. Missing title, warrant or factoring documents cost you real money on the day.
• Using an English-oriented process for a Scottish title. Missives, the Home Report and Land Register practice are not optional extras; they are the transaction.
• Judging an auctioneer by marketing rather than published results. Ask for sell-through rates. Allsop publishes its; insist that any competitor does too.

The bottom line

Allsop is a good auction house. It is large, established, transparent about its results, and genuinely strong on commercial and investment stock — £196m of commercial sales to July 2026 at an 89% success rate is not marketing, it is performance. If you own that kind of asset, put it on their list.

But it is an English-facing, investor-facing operation that asks you to pay an entry fee before you know whether your lot will sell, and it does not publish what that fee is. For most Scottish homeowners, a route that costs nothing unless it sells, draws on local cash-ready buyers and is built around missives is the better trade. If that is you, get a free valuation in 60 seconds or read how selling at auction works and our Scottish auction guide.

Written & reviewed by Julie McAndrews

Founder & Director of Scotland Property Auction. Julie has spent over a decade helping Scottish homeowners, landlords and executors sell property quickly at auction — covering Home Reports, missives, repossession and the modern method of auction.

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✔ Last reviewed June 2026 by Julie McAndrews. We keep our guides current with Scottish property law and market conditions.