Land Registry Fee Increase?

easyqueenie

Hi everyone,

This morning I received a letter from my solicitors asking for an additional £50 to cover an increase in land registry fees that have taken place since my husband and I paid our completion funds. We bought a new build house from Bryant Homes and completed on June 29th this year.

I have done a bit of research via Google and these forums and have found out that this increase happened on July 6th and that solicitors were given plenty of advance notice about it. As such I'm writing back to my solictors about the matter as i'm unhappy to be paying out more now. I have looked on the Land Registry website and cannot find our house, so presumably it has still not been registered?

I'm really not used to writing this type of letter so I'd be really appreciative if someone could have a look at what I've written and suggest anything I should/should not be saying? I have removed all the personal details.

I am writing in response to your letter dated 3 September (your reference: ***) regarding the increase of Land Registry fees from £150 to £200. In this letter you explain that since our payment to you for our Land Registry fee, these have increased and, as such, we are in a position to pay an extra £50 to cover this increase.

On looking into the matter, we have been advised that this increase happened on July 6th, over a week after our completion was finalised. We have also been informed that all solicitors in England were given advanced notice of the date this increase would take place. As this is the case, we believe that the land should have been registered before the increase took place, or if this would not have been possible, your firm should have been aware that the fees were due to increase and included the higher charge as part of the original completion statement.

For the reasons detailed above, we believe that the additional fee of £50 is an unfair charge and request clarification on why this issue has taken more than two months to be raised with us?

Anything else I should add or anything I shouldn't be saying? I don't want to go in guns blazing but at the same time I'm very unhappy that more than two months after completing and moving, I'm being sent letters asking for more money.

Thank you!

poppysarah

Solicitors are incredibly slow at getting things done.

Depends I spose on what your contract with them says. If it says "we reserve the right to pass on any fees caused by increases outside our control or through out lack of speed"