Solicitor's Fees - Setup of chancel insurance

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I'm buying a property in an area that may be liable for chancel payments, so my solicitor advised I could either do a full search to identify if I was liable, purchase indemnity insurance, or ignore it (which the lender may not have accepted). I opted to buy the insurance at around £60.

On the solicitors bill in addition to the chancel insurance cost, I now see an item 'Additional fees for setting up chancel insurance - £59.88'. Is it normal to be charged for this? It was never mentioned at any point, though I expect I have no option to pay it.

timmyt

ouch, some lawyers. In this climate lawyers need to give added value notcharge more!

check the terms of business, or just ask them to point where you agreed to this.

£60 though!

full chancel search is highly uncommon, andignoring it is fine too, as it is only a postcode search they have done, and really not worth the paper it is written on, but it has become standard practice. if he gave you the option of insurance but you had said no, then your loss. The lender won't care

Debt_Free_Chick

To be honest, I don't think it's unreasonable to charge - and the amount is not excessive. The solicitor has done work in order to arrange the insurance and deal with the chancel issue. They've just charged for their time in the normal way.

Richard_Webster

£59.88 looks like the cost of one of the basic non-successor 25 year policies from a leading Chancel insurer - so it looks like the solicitors did the basic "Chancel Check" search and found that the property was in an area where there was some liability. If that's the case you have probably little alternative but to pay it.

I used to try to get sellers to pay for this but usually their solicitors wouldn't let them so it was a case for the buyer of deciding whether to have a stand off over around £60 or bite the bullet and pay just to get the transaction on the road.

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Thanks for the feedback. I understand the chancel insurance itself is somewhat controversial, but I don't really mind purchasing it for peace of mind. The bit I'm less happy with is being charged an extra fee for the set up of the insurance; if I'd known they'd be charging £58.88 for that, I would have set it up myself! Still, I guess it's too late now.

Doozergirl

If it makes you feel any better, you can't set it up yourself.

Are you sure this isn't the actual policy that you're being billed for? My solicitor has a weird double-entry system for our invoices so it sometimes looks like we're being billed again when in fact you can see the credit that we've paid on one side as well, knocking it off the total.

Check that it isn't funny invoicing or indeed that they aren't billing you twice for the same thing.

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Yeah it's definitely two different things - "Chancel Insurance -59.75", and "Set up fee for chancel insurance - 59.88".

It does help to know that I couldn't have set it up myself, so I guess it's unavoidable, if not entirely transparent.

elise83_2

This is an interesting thread, having only just learned about Chancel Repair Liability myself. In my solicitors' terms of business I was offered two different options for approaching Chancel Repair Liability. The cheapest option to suit my lender's requirements would be to simply purchase indemnity insurance for about £10.

The other option was to do a specific search against the property to determine chancel risk (£11.75 for the search) and if the search discloses this risk exists then insurance cover would be needed at £59.88

Needless to say, I chose option number one!

I think it's a bit rich for them to charge you for setting up the insurance - are you not already paying a fixed fee for their time? Can they confirm that they are not receiving a commission payment for the insurance company for arranging this insurance?

timmyt

most lawyers do the search as the search (not insuramnce) has become the norm. people like to know if they might get the knock on the door, not just if they are covered. well that is our client feedback.

insurance is cheaper and we do not charge extra for arranging - part of our fixed fee - so we don't care about the cost hence we got client feedback. insurance is not a popular option

property.advert

Query and do not pay the charge. The solicitor will almost certainly get a kick back from the insurer in any case.

If you all capitulate to these charges, you will never stop the rot. I may well be inclined to write to the lawyer, charging him for my time at a rate which far exceeds his !

timmyt

property.advert wrote: »

Query and do not pay the charge. The solicitor will almost certainly get a kick back no they don't - set price for the insurancefrom the insurer in any case.

If you all capitulate to these charges, check your Terms of Business for the ability to charge extra. Your basic fee may be so low and these are the fine print you failed to read you will never stop the rot. I may well be inclined to write to the lawyer, charging him for my time at a rate which far exceeds his ! dont be silly, keep your lawyer on side and just ask for his explanation, he'll be happy to...if you keep a chemistry with your lawyer you end up with a lawyer who you can treat as your own point of contact for life.[/QUOTE]

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