Auction House recorded its best sales month in February, beating all previous records in the nine-year history of the company.

It offered 600 auction lots, selling 461 of them and raising nearly £63m in the process.

Auction House founding director Roger Lake said: “It’s a real milestone to have offered 600 auction lots in a month – a figure that hasn’t been reached by any auctioneer since the credit crunch.”

Lake acknowledged the boost to the market created by buyers trying to beat the arrival of the Stamp Duty surcharge in April, and said: “We now move from a buoyant pre-surcharge environment where all buyers were treated equally, to a market that is skewed in favour of those purchasing for owner occupation.

“We expect to see a new norm evolving.”