Solicitor Fees!!

chodges84

I think you've done pretty well. We actually budgeted for about £1200 solicitor fees on a simple purchase. I was very pleasantly surprised to find that (including searches) it would come in at about £700.

However, we have pulled out of the purchase and now have a bill for about £400 and no house to show for it, so we will end up near to the £1200 mark after all. Gutting.

G_M

Read this.

clockworks_2

mine was purchase only and i paid just short of £900

[Deleted User]

We're being charged:

FEES FOR CONVEYANCING SERVICE
Purchase fee - £600

PAYMENTS TO OTHERS
VAT - £90
Stamp Duty - £1900
REgistration dues of disposition - £300
Registration dues of Standard Security - £30

So quite a hefty bill but I'm more than happy with the £600 the solicitor is getting - she's been fabulous! Still to find out how much selling our existing property is going to cost!

This will be our third house purchase and (as we've recently lost both sets of parents) our 5th house sale. We've used lots of different solicitors. At best they were competent and unapproachable. At worst they were slow, never available and needed prompting to do everything. I was so frustrated by them that I actually dealt with winding up my mums estate without a solicitor. Tried the same with partners mum's estate several months later and ran into difficulty. That's when I found my current solicitor. She is wonderful. Very proactive, very friendly and supportive and ALWAYS phones/emails me to reassure and update me before I've got around to wondering what's going on. She makes it feel as if you've got your best friend acting on your behalf and looking after your interests.

If anyone's in Scotland PM me and I'll give you her details (She's based in Renfrew). She really is fantastic. She works on a no sale-no fee basis.

Richard_Webster

Speak with your solicitor and ask why you are having a brine search, I live in the east of England and I wouldn't carry out a brine search in our area, you may want one if you lived in an area that was affected by brine extraction example Cheshire? This search is not compulsary.

It obviously is in Cheshire - who would think of doing a brine esearch anywhere else! And see OP's own note:

ETA - Our local council states that our areas has to have compulsory brine searches due to the local salt mine!

Sweetcaz_2

Lycaeus wrote: »

OUCH!

We got our quote through from our solicitor today. The fee's seem phenomenal!

Charge £500 +VAT
Brine Search Fee (?) £39.00
Land Registry Reg Fee £200
Land Reg Search £8.00

Total £822:eek:

That cant be right surely?!!

Indeed it sounds about right to me.

Have just sold and bought and was around £500 to deal with the sale and approx £800 to deal with the purchase - so around £1,300 in total.

I based my decision on the cheapest quote and would advise others against this as my solicitor was pretty unhelpful and seemed to only want to do the bare minimum for his fee :mad: (to be fair it was a well known local firm so I was pretty surprised!)

If you have not already I would advise asking around for recommendations. Good luck

ginandtonic1988

Richard_Webster wrote: »

It obviously is in Cheshire - who would think of doing a brine esearch anywhere else! And see OP's own note:

Correct Richard but the OP had edited their post after I had replied!

missylis

I am in N.Ireland my fees for selling and buying is £2000, I got other quotes which were more expensive I feel this is probably dear but I was recommended them by a friend so i hope they do their job in getting things through for me quick.

Sunny2good

Here is what ive been quoted - its for purchase only and i have a HIP which has valid local and water searches, so no need to do those. The rest, sadly, needs to be done. Total cost - 1038.75

If someone knows a good solicitor in London who would give me a better quote then that, then please let me know

Legal Fees (Freehold) 350.00 + 52.50 VAT


Land Registry Fee 200.00

Local Search Fee (approximately) 200.00 *Done as part of HIP

Water and Drainage Search 48.00 *Done as part of HIP

Environmental Search 45.00

Parish Liability Search 82.25

Bank Telegraphic Transfer Fee 40.00

Bankruptcy Search Fee 2.00 (per name)

H M Land Registry Search Fees 12.00

Post completion Fees 70.00 + 10.50 VAT

Mortgagees Fees 150.00 + 22.50 VAT

Richard_Webster

The legal fee is actually £570 + VAT because you really need to add the mortgagee's fees and the "post completion" fees (whatever they are) to the total. For London for a property up tot £200K (taken from the amount of the LR fee) given higher overheads than elsewhere it doesn't sound that bad.

We might be a tad cheaper in the provinces. Not sure why you are being charged £82.25 for a Parish Liability/Chancel Search. The search + insurance (if there is some possible liability) might cost that but it is not normally considered sensible to do a full Chancel Liability Search because it might tell you something you don't want to know. A number of firms such as my own have a block insurance policy for Chancel Liability which we use in all cases because it is cheaper than doing the search. Worth finding a firm with facility for the potential costs saving.

And, no, I can't do the policy for people who are not my clients or their buyers.