Going for the hard sell

SOMEONE has finally popped his head above the parapet and said what has only been whispered among those in the know. Outgoing Woolley & Wallis chairman Paul Viney, reflecting on the auction market and how sellers have so much power these days, said that if someone had a £500,000 item to sell they would not expect to pay any seller’s premium (to which add, I strongly suggest, a number of items totalling that sort of value) and – this being the long-whispered, although badly kept, ‘secret’ – if you had something worth £10m, “you could say to the auction house, how much of the buyer’s premium are you going to give me?” That is something of a jaw-dropper but makes commercial sense.

Using Bonhams’ published rates as an example, the buyer pays 13.9% (plus VAT) above a £3m hammer price. That equates to £1.39m (plus VAT) on Mr Viney’s notional £10m item – a huge sum for something that may take only a