Conveyancing Solicitor Fareham/Portsmouth area

danlojo

Any suggestions or knowledge of a good straight forward Solicitor for FTB on a house?

Fareham/Portsmouth area would be great

Do they tell you up front of all fees etc?

Thankyou for looking

marshmallow79

Biscoes seem to be pretty good. All solicitors should tell you fees upfront, if they don't I'd avoid like the plague.

Tomsdad67

Hi

I am using Warner Goodman at the moment. So far they have been good!!

They provide an accurate quote on their website if you are interested. You can easily find the web address by typing Warner Goodman in to Google and then selecting the conveyancing option.

There service also includes an online tracker allowing you to monitor progress which is quite useful.

Alternatively in the past I have used a company in Park Gate called Select Conveyancers. They are licensed conveyancers rather than solicitors but more than capable of doing a good job and probably cheaper than the likes of Warner Goodman. The key contacts there are Roger Paddey or Lyn Sprake.

Hope this helps.

danlojo

Thanks Marshmallow and Tomsdad for the replies.

I appreciate the advice as it's a nightmare who to chose!

DLJ

danlojo

Another question!!


Are the only other fees the survey extra to the conveyancing which I assume must be done by the Mortgage lender???

danlojo

Crikey, just done a couple of online conveyancing costs and 2 are over £1000 is that normal?? I was hoping to pay around £600 -£700 ??

Why do they do Bankruptcy checks?? and mortgage fees when the mortgage is coming from elsewhere??

Richard_Webster

I am using Warner Goodman at the moment. So far they have been good!!

Has TomsDad got his mortgage offer yet? I've just obtained an online quote from Warner Goodman and they charge extra for dealing with the mortgage work. The figure quoted is £100 and it really should be included in the basic fee so as not to confuse lay clients. However that is not all. There is a little mark by the figure which refers you to a note below:
QUOTE] Please note that the lenders conveyancing fee quoted here is an estimate. It represents our minimum charge for dealing with your lender and their requirements. Where your lender prescribes a conveyancing fee in excess of this figure then your lenders prescribed fee will prevail. We will confirm the requisite fee with you once we receive the lenders mortgage instructions. Please note that our fee will be the same fee as specified in your mortgage illustration and will usually appear at section 8 of your mortgage offer.
[/QUOTE]

Now I have a client getting a £85000 mortgage from Santander and they quote £126 in section 8 of the offer. Halifax have put £180.36 in the same spot for a loan of £311,250. However National Westminster Homeloans are lending another client £107,900 and they put in a whopping £590 at that spot! So if you thought you would be charged £100 for the mortgage work think again. Lenders seem to vary with these figures which are there so they can calculate the APR for the mortgage but Nat West/RBS seem to use particularly high figures.

I have no complaints about their conveyancing work and they have always been considered a reputable local firm, but I do think the charge for the mortgage work is a bit naughty, particularly since it depends on the vagaries of mortgage lenders and could sometimes be as much as or more than their basic conveyancing fee.

I agree with the comments about Select Conveyancers - they are very competent.

fred7777

We have just sold our flat and bought a house using Solent Property Lawyers as solicitors. Unfortunately this forum won't let me post a link to them but google will find them and i can't recommend them enough for value and efficiency.

MajorTom_2

Danlojo,
£1000 is about the norm, you can get cheaper online generally however you get what you pay for in my experience.
Most of the stories I hear about the online lot are your case is handled by low down grunts in a call centre style with the real qualified people getting involved when they need to (e.g. keeping their costs low with cheap labour for low charges).
I'm personally using Harris & Co in Southsea at the moment, think it was around the £1,000 mark all in and they've done a really good job so far.

And the costs were quoted over to me before proceeding too.

Cheers,

MT

Richard_Webster

£1000 is about the norm

For what and what price was the property? Is this just the basic conveyancing fee plus VAT or does it include searches and Land Registry Fees (the last of which vary with he price of the property?

I wish people would be clear when they make these comments.