LotandListing

Consignment and How It Works

Handing an object to a saleroom to sell on your behalf: what the arrangement commits both sides to, what it costs, and where sellers most often misread the terms.

Consignment Revised 29 August 2026 4 articles

Selling through an agent

Handing an object to somebody else to sell on your behalf is a specific legal arrangement, not a favour. Ownership does not change. The agent takes possession, markets the piece, sells it under agreed terms, deducts what the contract entitles them to, and passes on the rest.

Sellers get into difficulty here less often through sharp practice than through never having read what they signed. The terms are usually reasonable and almost always one-sided in the ways any agency agreement is. how the selling channels compare covers whether to use this route at all; this section covers what happens once the decision is made.

What the arrangement actually is

The seller keeps title until a buyer takes it. The agent holds the goods, insures them under terms set out in the contract, and has authority to sell within limits the seller agreed. That is the whole shape of it, and everything contentious follows from one of those three elements.

Because title does not pass, an unsold object remains the seller's problem. It has to come back or go into another sale, and either outcome may carry a charge. This is the part people most often assume works the other way round.

The deductions are not one number

The headline percentage is rarely the whole of it. On top of the agent's share, contracts commonly provide for the cost of preparing the piece for sale, photographing it, insuring it while it is held, and moving it. Some provide for a charge when a lot fails to sell.

None of those is unreasonable in isolation. Together they can move the effective rate several points, and the seller who budgeted from the headline figure alone is the one who is surprised by the remittance advice.

Not everything is accepted

Agents decline far more than they take, and being turned away is not a judgement on the object. It usually means the piece does not fit what that business sells, or its likely result would not cover the work of handling it.

Declining is also a service. A house that accepts something it cannot place has taken on storage and admin for a lot that will disappoint everybody, and the seller has lost weeks they could have spent elsewhere.

The calendar is longer than people expect

From handing something over to receiving money, the elapsed time is measured in months more often than weeks. Intake, cataloguing, the sale itself, then a settlement window while the buyer pays. Each stage is short. The sum is not.

Anyone selling against a deadline needs the settlement date, not the sale date, and needs it in writing before agreeing to anything.

Choosing which business to approach

Businesses differ far more than their websites suggest, and the differences that matter to a seller are not the ones most visible.

What matters is who their buyers are, what they sell regularly, and what they handle rarely. A house that runs specialist sales in a field has an audience for it. One that would slot the same object into a general sale does not, however good its intentions.

The way to find out is to look at what they have actually sold recently rather than what they say they cover. Past sale results are generally published, they are specific, and they answer the question directly.

Establish these in writing before signing anything

  • The commission rate, and whether it slides with the result.
  • Every additional charge that may be deducted, and whether any of them apply if the lot does not sell.
  • The reserve, and who may change it.
  • How long the house may keep the goods, and how the term ends.
  • The settlement period, counted from the sale date rather than from anything else.
  • The insurance basis while the goods are held, and what it values them at.
  • What happens to an unsold lot: returned, re-entered, or offered privately.

Common questions

Who is responsible if the object is damaged while the agent holds it?

The contract says, and it is worth reading that clause specifically rather than assuming. Cover is normally provided while goods are held, but the basis of valuation varies: some agreements insure to the low estimate, some to a separately agreed figure, and some exclude particular categories of damage entirely. Establish the basis before handing anything over, because it is very difficult to argue about afterwards.

Next in sequence: estates and collections.