Sale of bullion to cover outstanding charges

Why do I have unpaid charges?

You can see a full list of possible charges in our tariff, but the most common is the monthly custody fee, covering storage and insurance of any bullion you held in the month.

Charges are normally deducted from cash balances on your account, but when you run out of available cash you'll start to accrue unpaid charges — these can be seen in the 'Pending settlement' section of your balance.

Unpaid charges get settled off automatically the next time you have available cash.

When will BullionVault sell my metal?

If your BullionVault account has unsettled charges, BullionVault has the right to redeem its entitlement by a sale of your bullion. We will always warn you by email at least 7 days before we sell any of your bullion, as we would much prefer that you settle the debt via other means — for example, by sending funds from your linked bank account or by selling some bullion yourself.

How can I avoid a sale?

The simplest way is to maintain a small cash float in your account. This will ensure your account balance remains positive when the monthly storage charges are applied. You can check the cash balance on your monthly statement and top it up as and when needed by sending funds from your linked bank account.

Alternatively, keep an eye out for our emailed warnings — these usually go out early in the month, but always at least 7 days prior to any sale of your bullion. This is plenty of time to arrange for a bank transfer to clear the charges.

If BullionVault sells my bullion, how will it work?

If the outstanding charges are not cleared by the date specified in the warning email, we will place orders to sell a portion of your bullion at the next Daily Price. These prices are set once a day per metal with reference to the LBMA Precious Metal Prices. Gold will usually be sold before silver, silver before platinum, and platinum before palladium.

As the Daily Price is not known in advance, we can only estimate the minimum amount of bullion needing to be sold to cover the unsettled charges. Normal BullionVault charges for dealing at the Daily Price will apply.