Modern auction and a buyers fee?!

[JacksonvilleJaguars]

House hunting, have been a while and thoroughly sick of It.
Got notification of a house that would tick most of the boxes, all excited until I read the sale particulars.

It's being sold by a 'modern auction' which has a closing date of 3 months time. I'd have to put down a non refundable reservation fee of 3% + VAT to secure the house and take it off the market. There's also a reserve price which won't be anymore than 10% of the starting bud.

WTF?! All this for a 3 bed terraced with garage. What's wrong with the normal way of selling houses?

Meant starting bid...

I won't bother going into detail but I would strongly advise both sellers and buyers to completely avoid the ''modern method of auction''.

It's a complete rip off and open to abuse if not outright fraud.

Agree with jemihap

Yes - it's a con for a buyer and gets the seller out if paying the estate agent's fees. If you like it I'd be tempted to tell the agent you would make an offer if it were being sold conventionally. I'd also be tempted to put a note through for the sellers if they are living there because I think this is one of those things that EAs persuade sellers is a great idea.

Oh I'm definately not going anywhere near it, just couldn't believe what I was reading. We're also in the SE where the market is struggling too so seems a really foolish way to sell a house