Auction House has passed the milestone of 3,000 lots sold this year, raising more than £500m in the process for the first time in the group’s 14-year history.

Between January and October Auction House sold 3,045 lots from 3,668 offered – a success rate of 83%, raising £517,719,529 in the process.

In October alone, the group sold 401 lots from 479 offered – another 83% success rate – and raised a total of £66,483,950.

Auction House managing director Jeremy Prior said: “This is a spectacular result for the group – helped in no small part by our regional network of dedicated auction teams across the country, and our policy of relying on traditional, ‘unconditional’ auctions, where sellers have the certainty of knowing that once the hammer comes down, the deal is done.

“Many other auctioneers rely on ‘conditional’ sales, which involve an awkward limbo period of 56 days after the auction itself – during which time anything can happen to the sale – plus an eye-watering fee of up to 5% or 6%, which is typically shouldered by the buyer!

“Vendors often pay no fees at all in conditional sales which does make you wonder who the agent is actually working for – seller or buyer – and where the agent’s real interests lie.”

He added: “Certain practitioners of conditional auctions need to ask themselves who their clients are. Can they honestly say they are working to secure the best price for their vendor clients when their income relies entirely on the buyer paying their fees?

“What’s more, many practitioners seem to ignore the fact that today’s buyers become tomorrow’s sellers – and these buyers have long memories. Not surprisingly, they neither expect nor appreciate having to pay through the teeth when they are already spending thousands of pounds of their hard-earned cash on the price of the property itself.

“So, it seems to me that ‘uncertain’ conditional auction sales, coupled with the buyer paying ridiculously high fees is both short-sighted and flies in the face of traditional auctioneering.

“By contrast, unconditional auction sales are open, transparent, and are the way both buyers and sellers expect business to be done. They are what Auction House are good at and why we’ve become the leading specialists in the unconditional method of sale. I believe our latest reported sales figures of over half-a-billion pounds worth of property sold in the year to date is testament to that fact.”