About Know Your Auction

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Know Your Auction is an independent editorial site about buying vehicles and equipment at auction. We explain how sales run, what the fees really total, and how titles transfer. We do not sell vehicles, run auctions or take referral money from platforms, and no company can pay to appear here.

What this site is

An editorial reference for private and small-business buyers. Most auction writing online is either a platform's own marketing or a forum thread from 2013, and neither tells you what a sale will cost you this month. We write the page we wanted when we started: the whole process in order, the charges named individually, and the paperwork that decides whether you can register the thing you just bought.

The audience we have in mind is somebody buying one vehicle, not a hundred. That changes the advice. A dealer buying volume can absorb a bad lot; a private buyer usually cannot, so we spend more words on inspection, title checks and transport than on finding a bargain.

How it is funded

Reader-supported. There is no advertising on the site today. We may add clearly labeled affiliate links in future, and if we do, they will be marked where they appear and they will never change a rating or an ordering. No platform pays for placement, for a higher score, or to have an unflattering figure removed. If that ever changes, this page changes first.

How we assess platforms

We score platforms against six weighted criteria, with the total cost to a private buyer carrying the most weight, and we take fee figures from each platform's own published schedule rather than from a summary somebody wrote years ago. The full method, the weights and the correction process are set out in our editorial policy.

Who writes it

Three people, all named, with the pages each of them writes listed on the team page. Every article carries a byline and a visible date. Where somebody is giving an opinion rather than reporting a published fact, the page says so in those words.

What we do not do

We do not sell leads, contact details or any other reader information. We do not list vehicles or run sales. We do not offer valuations for hire, appraisals, or a service that will bid on your behalf. If you want any of those, the platforms and the trade will sell them to you, and we would rather stay on this side of the line so that our fee tables are worth reading.