conveyancing costs, advice please on how much?

puddy

ok,, I live in London, moving to out of London. selling for 170, leasehold, got a mortgage already, have a hip on my property, porting mortgage to the new property. property i want to buy hasnt been chosen yeet but will be no more than 170, probably around 150 and will be freehold.

i have talked to some solicitors today, got some estimates for around 1600 inclusive, the lowest was about 900, mostly around the 1300 to 1600 mark, obviously thats if everything goes smoothly and no extras arise.

does that sound about right? i must say i was hoping for it to be around the 1k mark, all in, is there room for manouvoure in the current financial climate, are they desparate for work at the mo?

Ilian2008

Hello. Yes there is room in this market but it will hit a floor as the overheads are sucha killer that you could end up working for nothing especially if for unforeseen reasons the deal becomes unduly protracted and goes on for months and months. If you look at it as an hourly rate over a long time the amount of work that goes in isnt a great return but im quoting half the fees i could command 4 years ago. I dont have a secretary anymore which means i spend more time in the office, sometimes 16 hour days and work weekends. but its tough out there

M_Blue

The conveyancing is the most important part of buying or selling a property - try to pick a company with good standards that is going to do the job properly can any friends or family recommend anyone - getting the cheapest quote is not always the best option especially if its a volume conveyancing company. Good Luck!

Richard_Webster

Hello. Yes there is room in this market but it will hit a floor as the overheads are sucha killer that you could end up working for nothing especially if for unforeseen reasons the deal becomes unduly protracted and goes on for months and months. If you look at it as an hourly rate over a long time the amount of work that goes in isnt a great return but im quoting half the fees i could command 4 years ago. I dont have a secretary anymore which means i spend more time in the office, sometimes 16 hour days and work weekends. but its tough out there

True, I'm afraid....people think all solicitors are made of money.... but there are limits.

If you look at £900, there's a Land Registry Fee of £150 and about £20 worth of searches and copy entries so you are left with £730. Take the VAT off that and you have £634 - £317 for a sale and £317 for a purchase - it isn't worth doing at that price.

Remember unless your flat is one where there are no service charges you will have to pay a fee to some managing agent that could easily be £100 and in London could be more like £300 just to get information about payment of service charges, copy insurance details and information about any planned large future expenditure.

My figure would come out around £1,500, but could vary because of this Information Fee which would make a difference, but over which I have no control - I would allow £100 built in for that.

If the quotes look cheap you need to check the small print and "terms and conditions" very carefully to see that there aren't traps like the "expedition fee" for completing in less than 3 weeks from exchange which is a scam when the average is probably a little under 2 weeks!

puddy

oh, ive only just seen this, i have taken the cheapest quote. i also got a quote from somewhere local for 2400!!!!!!

i asked why they were cheap, she said something about they have conveyancing only offices and so they dont have to charge extra for their time or someething, to be honest it didnt make sense to me, but its done now, the fee for my managing agents is probably going to be high because thats what they're like