Guide Price vs Reserve Price at a Scottish Property Auction (2026)
- The short answer
- What a guide price actually is
- What a reserve price actually is
- How the two figures are linked
- Upset price, roup and the Scottish vocabulary
- A guide price is not a valuation — and not the Home Report figure
- What 'plus fees' means — the bit that catches buyers out
- Setting a reserve: what sellers should actually think about
- What happens if the reserve is not met
- How buyers should read a guide price
- Four myths worth retiring
- How we handle it
The short answer
Almost every argument about auction pricing comes from treating one number as if it were another. Buyers see a guide of £60,000, bid £62,000, lose the lot and conclude the guide was fake. Sellers see a guide below their Home Report valuation and assume the auctioneer is undervaluing the house. Both misunderstandings dissolve once you know what each figure is actually for.
Key takeaways
- The guide price is public. The reserve price is not, and no auctioneer should disclose it.
- UK auction practice sets the reserve within a published guide range, or no more than about 10 per cent above a single-figure guide.
- Both figures can move right up to auction day as interest builds — a rising guide usually means a rising reserve.
- In Scotland's traditional sale by public roup the equivalent floor is called the upset price, set out in the articles of roup.
- A guide price is not a valuation, and it is not the Home Report figure.
- Guides are almost always quoted 'plus fees' — buyer's premium, administration charges and disbursements sit on top.
What a guide price actually is
A guide price is marketing information. Its job is to tell the market where a lot sits so that the right buyers turn up: it filters out people whose budget is nowhere near, and it gives serious bidders a starting point for their own research. It is published in the catalogue, on the lot page and on the portals, and it is visible to everyone.
Guides come in two forms. A single figure guide is written as, say, £60,000+ — the plus sign matters, because it signals the reserve may sit above it. A guide range is written as, say, £60,000 to £70,000, and the reserve should fall inside that band. Auction House, whose Scottish operation runs weekly online sales and in-room livestream auctions from Glasgow, publishes exactly this convention in its own price information notice: each lot is offered subject to a reserve which is expected to be set within the guide range, or no more than 10 per cent above a single-figure guide.
The second thing to understand is that a guide price is not fixed. Auctioneers revise guides during the marketing period as viewing numbers, legal pack downloads and registered bidders tell them how much appetite there is. Pugh Auctions — now part of BTG Eddisons following the consolidation of Pugh, Mark Jenkinson, SDL and Network Auctions under that brand — states plainly that both guide and reserve are subject to change up to and including the day of the auction. If you are watching a lot, check the guide again the morning of the sale.
What a reserve price actually is
The reserve price is the minimum figure at which the seller has authorised the auctioneer to sell. It is agreed in writing before marketing begins, it is confidential between seller and auctioneer, and it is the auctioneer's authority to bring the hammer down. If bidding stops below the reserve, the auctioneer has no power to sell — not because they do not want to, but because they were never given permission to.
Confidentiality is the point of it. If the reserve were published, no bidder would ever offer a penny more than the reserve, and the seller would lose the benefit of competition. Publishing a guide and withholding the reserve is what keeps a genuine contest possible. It also means you should be sceptical of anyone who offers to tell you what the reserve is: a reputable auctioneer will not, and cannot.
Some lots are offered with no reserve. That means precisely what it says — the lot sells to the highest bid, whatever that is. It is rare in Scottish residential sales and is usually seen where a seller values certainty of sale far above price, such as a corporate or executry disposal with a hard deadline. If you see it, take it literally.
How the two figures are linked
| Guide price | Reserve price | |
|---|---|---|
| Published? | Yes — catalogue, lot page, portals | No — confidential to seller and auctioneer |
| What it is | An indication of where the lot is pitched | The contractual floor below which it cannot be sold |
| Who sets it | The auctioneer, advising the seller | The seller, agreed with the auctioneer |
| Can it change? | Yes, throughout marketing | Yes, and often moves with the guide |
| Typical relationship | The anchor | Within the guide range, or up to about 10% above a single-figure guide |
| Is it a valuation? | No | No |
| Does it include fees? | No — usually quoted 'plus fees' | No |
Work an example through. A flat is guided at £60,000+. Under the convention above, the reserve could be anywhere from £60,000 up to roughly £66,000. A bid of £62,000 might therefore win the lot, or might fall short — you cannot know from the outside. Guided instead at £60,000 to £70,000, the reserve should sit somewhere inside that band, so a bidder with £70,000 available knows the lot is at least reachable.
This is why the honest reading of a guide price is a floor with a ceiling attached, rather than a prediction. What the property finally sells for is decided by how many people want it on the day, and that is a different question entirely.
Upset price, roup and the Scottish vocabulary
Scotland has its own auction language, and it surfaces mostly in traditional and court-driven sales rather than in modern online auctions. A sale by public auction is a sale by public roup. The conditions of sale are the articles of roup, which the successful bidder signs there and then — and which are binding immediately, without the missives stage a normal Scottish purchase would involve. The minimum acceptable bid set out in those articles is the upset price.
In practice, if you are bidding in a mainstream online Scottish auction in 2026 you will see 'guide price' and 'reserve price', because the market has standardised on UK-wide terminology. You are most likely to meet 'upset price' in a judicial sale, in a sale ordered by the court — for example following an action of division and sale — or in a heritable creditor's sale after a repossession. The concept is the same; only the label differs. Our guide to the Scottish auction legal pack explains where the articles of roup sit among the other papers.
A guide price is not a valuation — and not the Home Report figure
This is the single most common misunderstanding among Scottish sellers, and it is worth being blunt about. A guide price is an auctioneer's judgement about the level at which a lot will attract the strongest field of bidders. A valuation is a surveyor's opinion of open market value. They answer different questions and they very often produce different numbers.
Scotland adds a wrinkle that England does not have. Almost every residential sale here needs a Home Report, and the Single Survey inside it contains a valuation figure. That figure is what a mortgage lender will lend against — it caps borrowing regardless of what a buyer is willing to pay. It is not the guide price, it is not the reserve, and an auctioneer pitching a guide below it is not necessarily undervaluing your property. They may simply be pricing to create competition.
| Figure | Who produces it | What it answers | Who sees it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Report valuation | Chartered surveyor | What is this worth on the open market? | Every prospective buyer |
| Guide price | Auctioneer | Where should bidding start to attract a full field? | Everyone |
| Reserve price | Seller, with the auctioneer | What is the least I will accept? | Seller and auctioneer only |
| Upset price | Seller, court or creditor | The same as a reserve, in a sale by roup | Stated in the articles of roup |
| Offers over | Seller, via the selling agent | The minimum figure the seller will consider | Everyone |
| Hammer price | The bidders | What someone actually paid on the day | Everyone, afterwards |
The open-market cousin of all this is the pricing convention you see on Rightmove and ESPC every day. If you want that side of it, our explainer on what 'offers over' means in Scotland covers offers over, fixed price and closing dates.
What 'plus fees' means — the bit that catches buyers out
Look closely at a Scottish auction lot listing and the guide is almost always followed by two words: plus fees. Auction House's Scottish lots are published exactly that way. Those fees are real money and they are not part of your bid.
| Cost on top of the hammer price | Who charges it | Typical position in 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer's premium | The auctioneer | Varies by auctioneer. Prime Property Auctions, for example, publishes a premium of normally 3% with a minimum of £5,000 plus VAT. |
| Administration or buyer's fee | The auctioneer | A fixed sum, stated on the lot page |
| Disbursements | The seller, recovered from the buyer | Search fees, registration costs and similar, listed in the legal pack |
| Deposit | Paid immediately on the fall of the hammer | Commonly 10%, often with a stated minimum |
| LBTT (and ADS if applicable) | Revenue Scotland | Calculated on the price you pay, not the guide |
| Your own legal and survey costs | Your solicitor and surveyor | Budget for these before you bid, not after |
Every one of those figures is published somewhere — on the lot page, in the terms, or in the legal pack. The mistake is not that they are hidden; it is that buyers bid to the top of their budget and then discover the budget needed to cover the extras too. Read the lot page and the legal pack before you register, and set your maximum bid net of fees. Our guide to buying at auction in Scotland works through the full pre-bid checklist, and what it costs to sell at auction covers the seller's side.
Setting a reserve: what sellers should actually think about
The reserve is the one number in this process that is entirely yours. The auctioneer advises; you decide. Set it too high and the lot passes unsold, you have spent your marketing window and you go back out looking stale. Set it too low and you are exposed if the room is quiet on the day. The honest answer is that the reserve should be the lowest figure you would genuinely be content to accept — not your hoped-for price, and not a bargaining position.
- Start from your walk-away number, not your dream number. Ask yourself what figure would make you say yes without regret.
- Work backwards from your net proceeds. Deduct any outstanding mortgage, your solicitor's fees, the Home Report and your removal costs. See the cost of selling a house in Scotland for the full picture.
- Ask what the guide will be, and why. A guide pitched to attract competition is a legitimate strategy; a guide pitched unrealistically low to win your instruction is not. Ask the auctioneer to justify it.
- Check the auctioneer's actual results, not their claims. Past auction results are usually published. Look at what similar lots achieved against their guides.
- Ask when the reserve can be reviewed. If interest is strong, you should be able to move it — and if interest is thin, you may want to.
- Get it in writing. The reserve is contractual. It should be recorded in your agreement with the auctioneer, not agreed on the phone.
Julie McAndrews, founder of Scotland Property Auction, puts it this way: “The reserve is the seller's decision and it should be the number they can live with, not the number they are hoping for. If a seller cannot say yes to their own reserve without wincing, it is set in the wrong place — and we would rather have that conversation before the marketing starts than on auction day.”
What happens if the reserve is not met
If the bidding stops below the reserve, the lot is unsold. That is not the end of the road, and it is worth knowing the routes out because auctioneers' marketing rarely dwells on them.
- Post-auction sale. Unsold lots are commonly still available afterwards, and the highest bidder is usually approached first. Auction House publishes a standing 'unsold lots' section for exactly this purpose.
- Re-entry into the next sale. Often with a revised guide, and sometimes with a revised reserve. Ask what re-entry costs before you commit.
- A pre-auction offer next time. Some auctioneers accept offers before the sale date — Prime Property Auctions describes this as 'every day is auction day'. It can suit a seller who wants certainty over competition.
- Withdrawal. You can pull the lot. Check your agreement for withdrawal fees before you assume this is free.
- A different method entirely. If auction has not worked twice, the honest conclusion may be that the pricing, not the method, was the problem.
A lot that fails to meet its reserve is almost always a pricing outcome rather than a property outcome. Before re-entering, ask for the viewing numbers, the legal pack download count and the number of registered bidders. Plenty of interest with no bids means the reserve was wrong. No interest at all means the marketing or the guide was wrong. Those are different problems with different fixes.
How buyers should read a guide price
- Treat the guide as a floor with a ceiling attached, not as a prediction of the sale price.
- Assume the reserve could be up to about 10 per cent above a single-figure guide, and budget for that.
- Check the guide again on auction day — it can move.
- Add the buyer's premium, administration fee and disbursements before you set your maximum.
- Read the legal pack. The guide tells you nothing about title, burdens, factoring liabilities or common repairs.
- Remember the Home Report valuation caps what a lender will advance, whatever you are willing to bid.
- Do not bid on a lot you have not viewed or had someone view for you.
Four myths worth retiring
| Myth | The reality |
|---|---|
| Guide prices are deliberately fake to lure bidders | Guides are marketing figures with a published convention linking them to the reserve. A guide well below realistic value with a much higher reserve would breach that convention — if you suspect it, ask the auctioneer to confirm the reserve sits within it. |
| The auctioneer will tell me the reserve if I ask nicely | They will not, and should not. Confidentiality is what makes competitive bidding work. |
| The guide price is what the property is worth | It is not a valuation. In Scotland the Home Report valuation is the figure a lender relies on. |
| If it does not sell, the seller has wasted the process | Unsold lots frequently sell afterwards, often to the highest bidder in the room. |
How we handle it
We publish a guide price on every lot and we agree the reserve with the seller in writing before marketing starts — and we explain, in plain terms, why the guide sits where it does. Sellers pay no seller fees, our SaleLock Guarantee secures a non-refundable deposit from the winning bidder, and completion typically follows within 28 days. If a lot does not reach its reserve, we tell the seller exactly what the viewing, legal pack and bidder numbers were, so the next decision is made on evidence rather than optimism.
You can get a free valuation in 60 seconds, read how selling at auction works, or compare the main Scottish auction houses in our comparison of property auction companies in Scotland.
This guide describes general auction practice in Scotland as at August 2026 and is not legal or financial advice. Guide prices, reserve prices and fees vary between auctioneers and between individual lots — always check the lot page, the terms of business and the legal pack for the property you are interested in, and take advice from a Scottish solicitor before bidding or signing.
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.
More about Julie →✔ Last reviewed June 2026 by Julie McAndrews. We keep our guides current with Scottish property law and market conditions.