Troostwijk Auctions

Troostwijk Auctions runs timed online sales of industrial assets from Amsterdam, where Salomon Izaak Troostwijk registered the business in 1930 and which now trades as TBAuctions Netherlands B.V.; it bills itself as Europe's biggest B2B auction house. Stock comes from insolvency estates, business closures and restructurings, fleet renewals and firms clearing surplus equipment, appraised by in-house valuers; sector specialists run the sale for the seller and pay out the proceeds, and past mandates include asset sales for Fokker, Imtech and Heerema. More than a million lots go through the platform each year, pulling around four million visits a month and bidders from 175 countries. Offices run in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, the UK and Ireland, Scandinavia and Spain; Poland, Czechia, Romania and the Balkans go through sister company Surplex.

What you can buy

• Metal and woodworking machinery: CNC machining centres, lathes, presses, welding sets and saws from closed workshops.
• Construction and earthmoving: excavators, wheel loaders, site plant and power tools.
• Agriculture and food industry: tractors, harvesters, and food processing and packaging lines.
• Vehicles: ex-fleet cars and vans, trucks, trailers, motorcycles, campers and caravans, plus parts.
• Office and IT: servers, computers, printers, desks and shop fittings.
• Catering and consumer goods: kitchen equipment, furniture, electronics, clothing and hand tools.
• Property and energy: industrial buildings, land, homes, commercial premises, solar installations.
• Odd lots: boats, medical devices, art and collectibles.

How the bidding works

You need a free Troostwijk account, nothing more elaborate. Lots close on a published clock rather than in a live saleroom: bid manually or set an autobid ceiling and the system raises you by the minimum step until it hits your limit. A late bid pushes the closing time back in fixed blocks of minutes, so an auction can run well past its advertised end; the terms set six minutes for sister platform Vavato and leave the Troostwijk block unstated, so read the countdown on the lot page; a mobile app covers closings away from a desk. Every bid is final and binding, with no cancellation. Won lots appear under "my purchases", payable by iDEAL, Przelewy24, Bancontact or card. Most sales are pickup auctions with fixed collection days at the premises where the goods stand, usually without individual appointments.

What to check before you bid

The hammer price is not what you pay. A buyer's premium and VAT are added, both percentages set by the country the lot sits in, and VAT applies to the hammer price, the premium and any fixed service fee together; Dutch vehicles can also carry outstanding BPM. The confirmation screen shows the full total before you commit, so read it. A business account whose EU VAT number was validated before the purchase is invoiced without VAT and needs no export paperwork inside the EU; buyers outside the EU pay the full VAT and reclaim it afterwards by returning a completed, signed EX-A export document with the original invoice within three months of the sale, for amounts from EUR 50 up. Goods sell as they stand, so use the viewing day to start a machine and check hours, wear and missing tooling, which insolvency photos rarely reveal. Budget for dismantling, rigging and haulage: a press bolted to a factory floor becomes your problem at the fall of the hammer, though transport partners are listed. Terms and lot descriptions differ per country and appear in Dutch, German, French, Italian, Polish, Romanian and English.