Brightwells runs two auction centres in Herefordshire, and they are not two addresses for the same sale. Machinery, plant and heavy goods vehicles stand at Madley on Stoney Street, while Leominster at Easters Court handles classic vehicles and wine sales. Machinery sales are run online only, and collection is by prior appointment.
Two addresses, two different ranges
The auction house gives its addresses plainly. Leominster: Easters Court, Leominster, Herefordshire HR6 0DE, handling classic and vintage cars and motorcycles, together with wine, port, champagne and whisky sales. Madley: Brightwells Auction Site, Stoney Street, Madley, Herefordshire HR2 9NH, handling cars, motorbikes, motorhomes and caravans plus the plant, machinery and HGV department. A third address, in Hereford on King Street, handles rural property and farms and land. A machinery buyer therefore goes to Madley, not Leominster, and a mistake at that level is a dozen miles up narrow roads.
Trading since 1846, but selling online only
Brightwells gives 1846 as the start of its trading and describes itself as one of the leading independent auction houses in the United Kingdom. The selling model is thoroughly contemporary all the same: the machinery department runs timed online sales with no on-site bidding, and sets a viewing day before the sale closes. In the listing for a particular sale the house states plainly that lots are sold as seen and without warranty, and that collection is by appointment only. What sold as seen means and how to protect yourself against it is covered in our article on auction registration and bidding.
A yard that does load
Here is something that cannot be confirmed for most auction houses but can be for Brightwells. The house states that the site has loading facilities and operates to strict health and safety conditions, on a forty-acre site with round-the-clock security monitoring and a fully alarmed compound. Machinery is consigned into Madley rather than sold at the vendor premises; the house makes the point that it owns the site and can take equipment in during normal working hours. For a carrier that is the destination-yard model: one address, hard standing, lifting equipment and the ability to book a collection. A driver entering the site is bound by the site rules: a ten mile per hour speed limit, mandatory high-visibility clothing, no children under twelve and no dogs, and operation of machinery only by a competent person.
The customs strand: clearing in the Netherlands and deferring the tax
Herefordshire is a long way from the Channel ports, so the route crosses the middle of England to Dover, Folkestone or the east coast ports in any case. On a run like that it is worth costing the variant with clearance in the Netherlands under procedure 42: release for free circulation with a simultaneous intra-Community supply means the tax is not paid at the border but accounted for in the country of destination. A separate but related mechanism is the Dutch licence to shift import VAT to the periodic return. The Dutch tax administration states plainly that a foreign company cannot apply for such a licence itself and must engage a tax representative to do so, who has to be established in the Netherlands and provide financial security; liability for the company own tax obligations remains with the company regardless. We set out the arithmetic in our article on deferring import VAT in the Netherlands, and the conditions of the procedure itself in our piece on customs procedure 42.
When Poland after all
Where the buyer has no VAT number in the country of clearance and no agreement with a tax representative, and there is one machine, the cost of standing the whole structure up exceeds the benefit. Ordinary clearance in Poland is then simpler. The same logic applies to agricultural equipment, which brings in a phytosanitary strand covered in our article on farm machinery auctions in the UK.
What we could not confirm
We found no public single set of conditions of sale: the terms page on the site covers use of the website, while the terms governing a particular sale are published in that sale listing and change from sale to sale. Nor could we confirm the rules on passing of risk or the insurance requirements, because they do not appear on any public page. We do not quote premiums, removal deadlines or storage charges. We are not a representative of this auction house.
Sources
- Brightwells: addresses of the Leominster, Madley and Hereford offices
- Brightwells: buying machinery, loading facilities and the forty-acre site
- Brightwells: health and safety rules applying on site
- Belastingdienst: reverse-charge mechanism on import, the Article 23 licence
- EUR-Lex: Directive 2009/69/EC, conditions for the import exemption with intra-Community supply
Buying a machine at Madley? Send the lot number, the dimensions and the collection date through the quote form. See also tractors and farm machinery from the UK.
