Ask a consignor what they remember about their last auction and the hammer price comes second. The first thing they remember is how long they waited for the cheque, and how many times they had to ask. Settlement is the last contact an auction house has with a consignor before deciding whether to send the next collection, and most houses treat it as bookkeeping.
This guide sets out what the major houses promise, the clause that makes every one of those promises conditional, what US state law actually requires, why settlement takes as long as it does, and what a mid-sized auction house can do to pay in two weeks without funding a defaulting buyer. We build auction software that produces settlement statements, so read the last section with that in mind. Every figure comes from the houses’ own published terms or the statutes, listed at the end, and was checked on October 29, 2026.
What the Major Houses Promise
| Auction house | Settlement term | Condition |
|---|---|---|
| Sotheby’s | Within 45 days of the sale | Buyer has paid; no consumer cancellation right applies. Buy Now sales: 5 days after delivery to the buyer |
| Christie’s | 35 days | Buyer has paid |
| Bonhams | 35 days | Buyer has paid |
| Heritage Auctions | 45 days after the auction closes; 30 days for sports | Published on its consignment process page, with a claim of paying every consignor in full and on time since 1976 |
| Stack’s Bowers | 45 days after the last day of the auction; 30 days for Collectors Choice online sales | An InstantCash programme advances up to 60% the day after the auction on online consignments above $50,000 |
| Heffel (special terms, May 2026 court-supervised sale) | Within 7 working days of receiving the buyer’s payment | If the house pays before the buyer has paid in full, title to the lot passes to the house |
Three things stand out. First, the clock at the big houses runs from the sale date, but the payment is still conditional on the buyer: 45 days is the latest you will be paid if everything goes well, not a guarantee. Sotheby’s help centre, updated April 13, 2026, puts it plainly: proceeds are remitted within 45 days “provided that we have received payment from the purchaser”. Second, the terms are getting longer at the top, not shorter. Bonhams cut its UK payout from 35 days to 21 in 2004, according to the Antiques Trade Gazette at the time, and is back at 35 today. Third, the newest idea in settlement is to pay later still: in April 2026 Sotheby’s began offering consignors 7% interest to wait at least six months for their money. The specialists Spear’s asked were unimpressed. One, a partner at Wedlake Bell, said sellers “tend to prefer the certainty of liquidity” and that six months “puts you at greater risk in the case there is an insolvency event”.
For a regional or specialist house the lesson is not to copy the 45 days. It is that the houses with the most consignors in the world have settled on a number that protects their cash flow, and a smaller house that pays in two weeks has a selling point the big houses cannot match.
The Clause That Matters: Paid When the Buyer Pays
Every term in the table above rests on one sentence in the consignment agreement: the auction house pays the consignor after it has received payment from the buyer. The hammer falls, the buyer has a payment window (five business days at Bonhams, “immediately following the sale” at Phillips, 30 days before late fees at most houses), and the consignor’s clock does not really start until the money arrives.
There are two ways an auction house can write this clause, and the difference matters more than the number of days.
Conditional settlement. The house pays the consignor only once the buyer has paid for that lot. A buyer who defaults delays the consignor, and the resolution is between the house and the buyer. This is the standard clause at nearly every house, including all the ones in the table, and it is the right default for a house that does not want to carry its buyers’ credit risk.
Guaranteed settlement. The house pays the consignor on the agreed date whether or not the buyer has paid, and chases the buyer itself. Heffel’s special terms for a court-supervised sale in May 2026 show how this is usually drafted: the house pays within seven working days of receiving the buyer’s money, and if it chooses to pay the consignor earlier, title to the lot passes to the house. The house becomes the owner of a lot it has paid for and may resell it.
The practical middle path, and the one we recommend for a mid-sized house, is conditional settlement applied lot by lot. Instead of paying the whole sale on day 35, the house pays each consignor as the buyers of their lots pay, with a statement that shows which lots are settled and which are waiting on a buyer. Most buyers pay within a week of the invoice. A consignor whose five lots were bought by five prompt buyers gets paid in ten days; the consignor with one slow buyer gets four fifths of their money in ten days and a clear note about the fifth lot. That is faster than the big houses for most people, with no additional risk to the house.
What the Law Requires in the United States
Auctioneer licensing is a state matter, and most states say nothing about when a consignor must be paid. A few do, and the ones that do are specific. These are the provisions we could verify from the statute or rule itself.
| State | Deposit of proceeds | Payment to consignor | Settlement statement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas (16 TAC §67.70) | Into the trust or escrow account within 72 hours of the auction, unless the consignor is paid immediately | Within 15 banking days of the auction, unless a statute or written contract says otherwise | Records must include an itemized list of all expenses charged to the consignor and the settlement sheets |
| Ohio (ORC 4707.024; OAC 901:8-2-06) | Into the trust or escrow account within 72 hours of the end of the auction, unless paid immediately | Not later than 15 days after the auction, unless the contract or a court directs otherwise | An itemized account of sales within the same 15 days |
| Florida (Fla. Stat. 468.388) | Into an escrow or trust account at a Florida bank within 2 working days of the auction, when settlement is not immediate | No statutory number; the written agreement signed before the auction must state the terms for remitting proceeds | Seller expense funds refunded at final settlement |
| North Carolina (G.S. 85B-7.1 and the Auctioneer Licensing Board) | Within 30 days of the auctioneer receiving the proceeds, per the Board’s consumer guidance | A written settlement statement at or before final settlement: description of goods sold, selling price, net proceeds due, the name and address of the person paid and the amount | |
| Pennsylvania (Act 85 of 1983, §21) | Promptly, into a separate custodial or trust account, held until the transaction is terminated | No statutory number | A full accounting of the amount received when the transaction is terminated |
Two patterns run through these. The money is not the auctioneer’s: it goes into a trust account within hours or days, and the auctioneer accounts for all of it. And where a state does name a payout deadline, it is 15 to 30 days, not 35 to 45. A Texas or Ohio auctioneer who copied Sotheby’s terms into a consignment agreement would be fine, because both states defer to a written contract, but an auctioneer with no written term is on a 15 day clock.
If you are licensed in a state not listed here, check your own act and rules; several states have a trust account requirement without a payout deadline, and the licensing boards enforce the statement and accounting rules more often than the timing. North Carolina’s board publishes disciplinary orders for settlement statement violations. In the UK there is no statutory deadline and the contract governs, which is why the published terms of Christie’s and Bonhams are the reference point there.
Why Settlement Actually Takes 35 to 45 Days
None of the houses in the first table needs five weeks to add up a statement. The time goes to five things, and knowing which ones apply to your house tells you which ones you can remove.
The buyer’s payment window. If buyers have 30 days before late charges, the house cannot pay the consignor from money it does not have. This is the biggest component and the one most within your control, because your buyers’ terms are yours to set.
Cancellation rights and disputes. Sotheby’s holds proceeds for certain European and UK online-only buyers until the statutory cancellation period has passed. Any house that offers returns, authenticity guarantees or condition disputes within a window will wait for that window to close before paying out the lots concerned. The right response is to hold the disputed lot, not the whole sale.
Reconciling expenses. Photography, catalogue, insurance, shipping in, restoration, marketing contributions: if these are agreed per lot after the sale, each statement is a negotiation. If they are agreed in the consignment contract at intake, the statement is arithmetic.
Producing the statement. A house that catalogues in one system, clerks in another, invoices in a spreadsheet and keeps consignors in a CRM has to reconcile four sources before anyone can be paid. We have written about this pattern in the context of Wavebid and AuctionFlex: the settlement delay is usually the integration delay.
The float. This one is rarely said out loud. Money sitting between the buyer’s payment and the consignor’s payout earns interest and smooths cash flow, and a 45 day term on a sale that was 90% paid in a week is a free loan from the consignors. The state trust account rules exist because of it. A house that wants to be chosen by consignors should not want this income.
What Slow Settlement Costs
Consignor retention is the cheapest revenue an auction house has, and we have set out the numbers in why most consignors never call you back: most houses lose more than half their consignors after the first sale. The settlement experience is a large part of why. A consignor who had to email twice to find out when they would be paid does not consign again, and does not say why.
Dealers, who supply a large share of the lots at most specialist houses, decide where to consign on three things: the buyers you reach, the commission, and how fast they get their capital back to buy the next lot. A dealer with $200,000 tied up for 45 days at one house and 10 days at another will move, and the coin and card trades talk about it openly on their forums. GreatCollections built a reputation among coin consignors partly on settling within two weeks while competitors took 40 days or more, according to those consignors’ own forum posts.
There is also an estate angle. An executor settling an estate answers to beneficiaries and a probate timetable, and a house that can give a date and keep it wins the next estate from the same solicitor.
How to Settle in Two Weeks Without Taking Extra Risk
This is the process we see at auction houses that pay most consignors inside 14 days. None of it requires guaranteeing payment or funding a defaulting buyer.
- Agree every deduction at intake. Commission rate, any tiered rates by lot value, photography and catalogue charges, insurance, unsold fees, and what happens to bought-in lots, all in the consignment agreement before the lot is catalogued. A statement with nothing to negotiate is a statement that can go out the day the buyer pays.
- Invoice at the hammer. Buyer invoices with buyer’s premium, tax and shipping should exist the moment the sale closes, not the next week. Consolidated invoices for multi-lot buyers get paid faster than six separate ones.
- Collect fast. Card on file for registered bidders, a payment link on every invoice, and automatic reminders at day 3 and day 7. Most buyers pay within a week when paying is easy; the ones who do not are the ones your bidder approval should have flagged.
- Keep the proceeds in a trust account from day one. Whatever your state requires, run the sale’s receipts through a separate account. It makes the statement auditable and it keeps you out of the float.
- Settle lot by lot. Pay each consignor for the lots whose buyers have paid, and show the unpaid lots on the statement with the buyer’s status. Do not hold a consignor’s whole sale for one slow buyer.
- Generate the statement from the invoices. If the hammer, the buyer’s payment status, the commission and the agreed charges are all in one system, the statement is a report, and the payout can be approved from it.
- Pay electronically, and tell the consignor the date. A bank transfer with the statement attached, on a date the consignor was told at intake, is the whole consignor experience. “You will be paid within 14 days of each buyer paying, and here is the statement showing where each lot stands” is a sentence that wins consignments.
- Measure it. Days from hammer to payout, by sale and by consignor, is a number the owner should see every month. If it drifts from 14 toward 30, one of the steps above has broken.
What a Settlement Statement Should Contain
North Carolina’s statute is a good minimum: a description of every lot sold, the selling price, the net proceeds due, the name and address of the person being paid and the amount. A statement a consignor can actually read adds:
- The hammer price, the commission rate applied and the commission in money, per lot
- Every other charge, per lot, matching the line in the consignment agreement it comes from
- Unsold lots, with the reserve and what has been agreed: re-offer, return or private sale
- The buyer’s payment status for each lot, so a partial settlement explains itself
- Running totals: gross hammer, total deductions, net due, amount paid to date, balance outstanding
- The payout date and method, and the account the money went to
Send it with the payment, not after, and keep the signed copy. The licensing boards that discipline auctioneers over settlement do it for missing or unsigned statements more often than for late payment.
How Circuit Handles Consignment and Settlement
Circuit’s auction consignment software holds the consignment agreement, the lots, the commission structure and the agreed charges on the consignor’s record from intake. When the sale closes, buyer invoices are generated with premiums, taxes and shipping, and as each buyer pays, the consignor’s statement updates lot by lot: hammer, commission, charges, net due, paid and outstanding. Tiered commissions by lot value, collection value or consignor history are calculated automatically, finder’s fees are tracked on the same statement, and the payout and the statement are exported to your accounting system. Because the consignor, the bidder and the invoice live in the same auction house CRM, the statement email is logged on the consignor’s record with its open status, and the consignor’s next consignment is a task on the specialist’s list rather than a hope.
Whatever software you use, the principle is the same: settlement is the last thing a consignor sees, so make it the fastest and clearest document your auction house produces.
About Circuit Auction
Circuit Auction is an all-in-one auction management platform for professional auction houses specializing in collectibles. It runs on your own website under your own brand, with AI cataloging, live and timed bidding, a built-in CRM, automated invoicing and consignor settlement in one system.
Want to see what a 14 day settlement looks like with your own commission structure? Book a demo and bring a recent consignment agreement.
Sources (checked October 29, 2026): Sotheby’s help centre: When will I receive the proceeds from my sold item? (updated April 13, 2026), Spear’s: Experts question appeal of Sotheby’s deferred payment option for sellers (April 13, 2026), Heritage Auctions: The consignment process, Stack’s Bowers: Auction basics, Heffel: Priority Special Terms and Conditions of Business, Lot 128, 2026, Bonhams: Post-auction services, payment, Phillips: UK payment arrangements, Antiques Trade Gazette: Bonhams raise the stakes over client services (2004), 16 Tex. Admin. Code §67.70, Auctioneer Standards of Practice, Ohio Rev. Code 4707.024, Ohio Admin. Code 901:8-2-06, Fla. Stat. 468.388, North Carolina Auctioneer Licensing Board: Information for consumers, Pennsylvania Auctioneer and Auction Licensing Act, Act 85 of 1983, as amended, Collectors Universe forum: GreatCollections settlement checks.
