Can someone please advise:
I've got my eye on, say, three cars at auction. Bid on first car and 'win' it provisionally. Am I then prevented from bidding on the other cars, which could come through before the provisional is accepted? Scenario is then losing out on the other cars if the provisional is declined - or ending up with two or more bids being accepted :-( Is it just a case of tough t**ty??
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Never bought at auction, but in law a provisional bid is one that has not been accepted. You can withdraw an offer that has not been accepted at any time.
So, in theory, as long as you get the timing right and you make sure that acceptance is communicated to you immediately, or will come through until you have finished bidding, you are in the clear and can withdraw your bid once you have something you want.
That's the theory. I'm not sure to what extent auction rules can and do prevent that - quite a lot, possibly. Even if pure, unrestrained contract law ruled, it would still be a bad thing to have two provisional bids open at once in case they both came through at the same time, in which case you need a bridging loan and an auction entry form for your spare car.
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If a car sells provisionally then you will have to pay a deposit which forms a contract between you and the auction house. You cannot withdraw from this contract without losing your deposit. If the provisional offer is not accepted then you have the option of terminating the contract -i.e get your deposit back or pay the asking price.
As you rightly point out this is a real problem if there are a few cars which you are interested in. Thankfully most lease companies are wise to this problem and have representives at the sales who can normally make quick decisions. If its a trade or private entry you could be waiting all day for the answer.
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Thanks, Steve, I kinda thought that was the case :-((
Do you know if the same applies to both traders and private punters alike?
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It is worth remembering that if the seller does not accept your provisional bid but asks for a higher bid you are free to walk away. Hence if your provisional bid is close they risk losing a sale by rejecting it. Depending on how the provisionals office works at the particular auction it doesn't do any harm to ask them to try and get an answer fast as you can only buy one car and want to get back out there.
If the auctioneer says very provisional on your bid you are very unlikely to get it so could bid on other cars straight away if the bank account will take it.
On one occasion the auctioneer (who had me bidding against nobody) didn't actually want to take the deposit as I was still so far off reserve. But I carried on anyway, and got the provisionals desk to tell the seller (finance co.) why they should sell it cheap. In the end I got it for £2k less than they said they would take.
PB.
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