Factory Clearance and Equipment Disposition for Solvent Businesses
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A good deal of machinery disposal content is written with insolvency in mind. Plenty of equipment is sold by businesses that are trading perfectly well: relocating, downsizing, replacing a line, closing one site of several, or coming to the end of a lease. That is equipment disposition rather than insolvency work, and the main practical difference is that you control the timing. With us there are no standard selling, listing, entry or commission charges, the equipment stays on your site until it is sold and paid for, and you receive 100% of the hammer price together with any applicable VAT.
What is equipment disposition, and how is it different from an insolvency sale?
It is the planned sale of surplus plant and equipment by a solvent business. The distinction from an insolvency disposal is control. You decide what goes and what stays, when the sale runs and what the site looks like when buyers see it. An officeholder rarely has any of those advantages, because the business has usually stopped by the time they arrive.
The scenarios are ordinary business ones: a move to a new site, a reduction in floor space, a new machine that makes the old one surplus, a change in what the business makes, the end of a lease, or the consolidation of two sites into one after a merger. The assets can be much the same as an insolvency sale would produce. What tends to differ is that you have time.
- Who decides the timing. Planned disposition: You. Insolvency disposal: The officeholder, often working to a deadline.
- Condition of the site. Planned disposition: Usually operating, with staff available. Insolvency disposal: Access and staffing vary with the circumstances.
- Documentation. Planned disposition: Service records, manuals and history are usually to hand. Insolvency disposal: Varies, and may be less complete.
- What can be included. Planned disposition: What you own and choose to sell. Insolvency disposal: Estate property only, once third-party assets are excluded.
- Ability to demonstrate. Planned disposition: Machines may still be in place and connected. Insolvency disposal: Machines may already be isolated or disconnected.
Where those things apply, they tend to show up in how a lot list reads. A machine with its manuals, its service history and a clear description is a more straightforward proposition for a buyer than the same machine with nothing behind it. Where a formal valuation is needed for a board, a funder or an accounting purpose, an independent professional valuation can be arranged separately.
What can you actually sell?
Anything the business owns and no longer needs, provided you have the authority to sell it and it can be removed. The practical dividing line is between free-standing equipment, which is straightforward, and fixed plant, which needs a plan for dismantling, services isolation and making good.
- Production and workshop machinery. Machine tools, CNC, presses, fabrication and finishing equipment.
- Materials handling. Forklifts, pallet trucks, racking, conveyors and mezzanine systems.
- Plant and site equipment. Compressors, generators, dust extraction, welding plant.
- Vehicles. Vans, trucks and works vehicles surplus to the new operation.
- Fixed plant. Lines, ovens, tanks, extraction and services equipment, all of which need a removal plan before they can sensibly be offered.
- Office and IT. Furniture, servers, workstations and telephony, usually as job lots.
Two things to settle before a lot list is drawn up. First, ownership: equipment on hire purchase, lease or contract hire may be owned by a funder rather than by you, and third-party or customer-owned assets on site cannot be included. Second, removal: who dismantles, who isolates services, and what condition the space has to be left in, particularly where you are handing a building back to a landlord.
What does selling with us actually involve?
There are no standard selling, listing, entry or commission charges, and the equipment stays on your site until it is sold and paid for. We do not require assets to be transported to an auction site and we do not charge standard seller storage fees. When a lot sells, you receive 100% of the hammer price together with any applicable VAT.
- Inventory and ownership. You confirm what is being sold and that you have the authority to sell it.
- Listing. Lots are listed from the details and photographs you supply. We retain editorial and compliance control and may amend, clarify or reject information, and any amendment or withdrawal must be agreed with us and remains subject to the agreed seller terms.
- The sale. A timed online auction, trade-only, with a rolling ten minute soft close, open to bidders wherever they are.
- Reserves. A bid below reserve becomes a provisional bid valid for 24 hours after the sale closes, which you can accept or decline.
- Payment and collection. Buyers pay by bank transfer within 24 hours of invoice, and collection is authorised afterwards, by prior appointment.
- When you are paid. Payment to you is ordinarily arranged within 24 hours of us receiving cleared buyer funds, and always before the buyer is authorised to collect. Your equipment does not leave your site until it is both sold and paid for.
- Self-billing. We operate a self-billing arrangement, which means we raise the sales documentation for your lots on your behalf rather than asking you to invoice each buyer. That keeps the paperwork consistent across a sale with many lots and many buyers. The self-billing arrangement is set out in the seller terms and is agreed with you before the sale.
Universal Auctions Group Ltd acts solely as auctioneer and agent for the vendor and is not a party to the contract of sale, which is formed between the vendor and the successful bidder. On information about buyers, what we can share is marketing records, bidding activity and bidding history, subject to confidentiality and data protection requirements.
Who is responsible for disconnection, removal and making good?
Removal of a lot is the buyer's responsibility and at the buyer's cost, and collection happens by prior appointment after cleared payment. Disconnection is the point that needs settling before the sale, because a buyer must not disconnect anything without your authority, and work on gas, electrical, water or refrigeration services has to be done by appropriately qualified people. Making good the site afterwards sits with you unless you have agreed otherwise with the buyer, so it belongs in your plan rather than in a surprise at the end.
- Decide the disconnection route before you list. Either you isolate and disconnect the equipment in advance using your own contractors, or you set out in the listing what a buyer is permitted to do and on what terms. Leaving it open is what causes delays on collection day.
- Nothing is disconnected without your authority. That is the rule on site, and it is worth stating in the lot instructions so every buyer sees it.
- Use appropriately qualified people for services work. Gas work by a Gas Safe registered engineer holding the right categories, electrical isolation by a suitably qualified or competent electrician, and refrigerant handled by someone qualified to do so.
- Fixed plant needs a written plan. Who dismantles it, who lifts it, what happens to the bases, ducting, services and fixings, and what the floor looks like afterwards.
- Making good is yours unless agreed otherwise. If you are handing a building back, confirm what your lease requires before the sale, and price it alongside the disposal rather than against it.
Where does the money go on a lot?
The buyer pays the hammer price plus the buyer's premium for that lot, and VAT according to the lot's treatment. You receive 100% of the hammer price together with any applicable VAT. The buyer-side charges are not deducted from what you receive, and they are not yours either.
This is the part most sellers want spelled out, because it is different from the model they expect. There is no standard commission taken out of your hammer price. The buyer-side charges sit on the buyer's invoice, which is why the buyer's total in the chart is higher than the hammer price while yours is the hammer price itself, plus any VAT that applies to your sale.
How do you prepare a site for a disposition?
Do the work that removes a buyer's doubts, because doubt is what suppresses bidding. That means accurate descriptions, honest photographs, clear identification of each machine, and a clear answer to how each lot comes out of the building.
- Inventory properly. Make, model, serial number, year, specification and what accessories go with each machine.
- Photograph well. Several angles, the data plate, the control panel and the hour or cycle counter where there is one. Buyers who cannot visit are buying on these images.
- Gather documentation. Manuals, service records, test certificates and tooling lists all support the lot.
- Decide the boundary. What is included: tooling, spares, software dongles, jigs, fixtures and cabling.
- Plan removal. Access route, door widths, floor loading, craneage, and who isolates power, gas, water and extraction.
- Sequence it against your own move. Equipment you still need to run production should be lotted for a later sale.
Where machines can be seen, viewing is available strictly by prior appointment. Any testing or demonstration must be agreed in advance and is subject to your site and safety requirements, so decide early what you are prepared to allow and tell us, because it is easier to answer a buyer's question consistently than to improvise it.
What should a seller expect on timing?
Work backwards from the date the space has to be clear. A lot list has to be built, listings prepared, the sale has to run its course, buyers pay within 24 hours of invoice, and collections are then booked by appointment. The collection window is the part that most often gets compressed, so leave room for it.
Two practical points. Machines that need dismantling take longer to remove than machines that can be forked onto a trailer, so lot them earlier. And if you are handing a building back, confirm what making good involves before the sale rather than after, because the cost of reinstatement belongs in your planning rather than in a surprise.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Leaving it until the move. A disposition run under time pressure loses the advantages that made it a planned sale.
- Listing assets you do not own. Check funder-owned, leased and customer-owned equipment before the lot list is built.
- Thin descriptions. A machine with no serial number, no photographs of the plate and no accessory list asks the buyer to guess.
- Forgetting the tooling. A machine sold without its tooling, jigs or software is worth less to a buyer and often causes a dispute at collection.
- No removal plan on fixed plant. Buyers discount heavily for uncertainty about getting a machine out.
- Unrealistic reserves set late. Reserves can be amended at any time during and after the sale, but a reserve set without reference to the market simply produces provisional bids.
- Ignoring the collection window. Your building is not clear until the last lot has gone.
About this guide, and where to check the terms
Last reviewed 26 August 2026. This guide is general information for business sellers and is not legal, tax or financial advice, and every figure in it is illustrative rather than typical or achievable. Ownership, VAT treatment and lease obligations turn on the facts of your own business, so take your own advice where the position matters. The terms of the individual sale govern each lot.
- Auction terms and conditions. Seller obligations, reserves and provisional bids, listing information, payment, collection, storage and export: universalauctionsgroup.com/terms-and-conditions.
- Selling with us. How an instruction works, start to finish: sell with us.
- Why sellers use us. The argument against a dealer sale or a private sale: why sell with UAG.
- Insolvency and asset disposal. Where an officeholder is appointed, the process differs: asset disposal.
- Buyer fees. The buyer's premium and any other charges for a lot are stated on that lot's Additional Fees tab.
Frequently asked questions
What is equipment disposition?
It is the planned sale of surplus plant and equipment by a business that is trading normally, as distinct from an insolvency disposal run by an officeholder. Typical triggers are a relocation, a reduction in floor space, a new machine that makes an old one surplus, a change in what the business makes, the end of a lease, or consolidating two sites into one. The assets are often the same, but you control the timing, the site condition and the documentation, and those advantages show up in how the lot list reads to a buyer.
What does it cost to sell machinery at auction with UAG?
There are no standard selling, listing, entry or commission charges. The equipment stays on your site until it is sold and paid for, we do not require assets to be transported to an auction site, and we do not charge standard seller storage fees. When a lot sells, you receive 100% of the hammer price together with any applicable VAT. The buyer's premium is charged to the buyer and is not deducted from what you receive. Payment to you is ordinarily arranged within 24 hours of us receiving cleared buyer funds, and always before the buyer is authorised to collect. We operate a self-billing arrangement, so we raise the sales documentation for your lots on your behalf rather than asking you to invoice each buyer.
Can I sell equipment that is on lease or hire purchase?
Only if you have the authority to sell it, which depends on the agreement. Equipment on hire purchase, lease or contract hire may be owned by a funder rather than by your business, and third-party or customer-owned assets on your site cannot be included. Settle this before the lot list is built, because it is far easier to resolve at that stage than after a lot has been listed or sold.
Do I have to move the machinery to an auction site?
No. The equipment stays where it is until it is sold and paid for, and buyers collect from your site by prior appointment after cleared funds. That removes the cost and risk of moving machinery twice, and it means a machine can remain in place, and in some cases still connected, while the sale runs. What you are prepared to allow at a viewing is your decision, since any testing or demonstration is subject to your site and safety requirements.
How is a lot listed, and who writes the description?
Lots are listed from the details and photographs you supply, so the quality of what you provide directly affects how a buyer reads the lot. We retain editorial and compliance control over what is published and may amend, clarify or reject information, and any amendment or withdrawal must be agreed with us and remains subject to the agreed seller terms. Serial numbers, specifications, accessory lists and clear photographs of data plates all reduce a buyer's uncertainty.
What happens if a lot does not reach its reserve?
A bid below reserve becomes a provisional bid, valid for 24 hours after the sale closes, which you can accept or decline. Reserves can also be amended at any time during and after the sale. A reserve set without reference to what the market is actually paying tends to produce provisional bids rather than sales, so it is worth discussing the level before the sale opens rather than reacting to it afterwards.
How long does a disposition take?
Work backwards from the date the space has to be clear. A lot list has to be built, listings prepared, the sale has to run, buyers pay by bank transfer within 24 hours of invoice, and collections are then booked by appointment. Machines that need dismantling take longer to remove than machines that can be forked onto a trailer, so lot those earlier. Equipment you still need for production should be held back for a later sale.
Who is responsible for disconnection, removal and making good the site?
Removal of a lot is the buyer's responsibility and at the buyer's cost, by prior appointment after cleared payment. A buyer must not disconnect anything without your authority, and gas, electrical, water and refrigeration work has to be carried out by appropriately qualified people: gas by a Gas Safe registered engineer holding the right categories, electrical isolation by a suitably qualified or competent electrician, and refrigerant by someone qualified to handle it. Making good the site afterwards sits with you unless you have agreed otherwise with the buyer, so if you are handing a building back, check what your lease requires before the sale rather than after it.
Sources and references
- Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER) · HSE, 2026 https://www.hse.gov.uk/work-equipment-machinery/puwer.htm
- Safe use of lifting equipment (LOLER) · HSE, 2026 https://www.hse.gov.uk/work-equipment-machinery/loler.htm
- VAT guide (VAT Notice 700) · GOV.UK / HMRC, 2026 https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-guide-notice-700
- Universal Auctions Group terms and conditions · Universal Auctions Group Ltd, 2026 https://www.universalauctionsgroup.com/terms-and-conditions
We sell surplus plant, machinery, handling equipment and vehicles for businesses that are relocating, downsizing or replacing equipment. There are no standard selling, listing, entry or commission charges, your equipment stays on your site until it is sold and paid for, and you receive 100% of the hammer price together with any applicable VAT.
See how selling with us worksUniversal Auctions Group · EORI registered and export-ready · no seller fees, UK-wide collection. This article is general information for trade buyers and sellers and is not financial, tax or legal advice.
