Bank fees and prof fees to fill in SDLT form

dr3ammu

I'm a FTB and my solicitor is charging me approx. £80 to fill in the SDLT form, £130 for dealing with my lender and that's in addition to their professional fee £750. Is this normal?

Also, they are also charging me twice for the Chaps fees at completion (in total £80 for chap fees - which I think is a lot!), once to transfer the funds across to the sellers solicitor, and the second time to pay for the Stamp duty transfer. Has anybody been charged twice for these transfers? Is there a way to avoid paying the second chaps fee?

Thanks.

SmlSave

I'm a FTB and my solicitor is charging me approx. £80 to fill in the SDLT form, £130 for dealing with my lender and that's in addition to their professional fee £750. Is this normal?

Personally I think that's disgusting! What were the other quotes like that you got?

How much are you buying for?

Tell them to pay the Stamp Duty by cheque or if they get shi**y say you'll pay it yourself

Richard_Webster

Were these charges clearly set out when the original estimate/quote was sent to you?

If the solicitors have been instructed by you and started work then you can hardly complain. Moral is to read the small print.

If these extras were either not explained or were buried in a load of turgid paragraphs then possibly you might be able to accuse them of deliberately obscuring the true amount of their charges and threaten to make a complaint.

If you haven't accepted the estimate go somewhere else.

timmyt

dr3ammu wrote: »

I'm a FTB and my solicitor is charging me approx. £80 to fill in the SDLT form, £130 for dealing with my lender and that's in addition to their professional fee £750. Is this normal?

Also, they are also charging me twice for the Chaps fees at completion (in total £80 for chap fees - which I think is a lot!), once to transfer the funds across to the sellers solicitor, and the second time to pay for the Stamp duty transfer. Has anybody been charged twice for these transfers? Is there a way to avoid paying the second chaps fee?

Thanks.

they are a disgrace to our profession!

his charges should include the £80 and £130. Terrible!

you should not have to pay the SDLT transfer - that is a new one on me - as it is done by cheque or credit account.

As a solicitor, my advice is to consider changing conveyancers, and immediately.

dr3ammu

Thanks for your advice.

The process's already started and can't help it now but I'm trying to limit the costs, especially the chaps fee on sdlt . I've asked them whether cheque payment can be made but they told me that they already have an agreement with the taxman and that the sdlt transfer should be made immediately on completion.

9wizard9

I'm in a similar position - we've just been presented with a final completion statement that includes a fee for completing the SDLT form. This wasn't mentioned in the detailed breakdown of charges when we initally asked for a conveyancing quote.

Thanks to Richard's helpful post on my thread I'm planning to dispute the form filling fee, but I'm a bit concerned as to whether this might threaten our exchange and completion dates - we're still to exchange, so we're reliant on the conveyancer to complete their work.

Not really sure what to do at this point - might be better to pay the fee and dispute it once we actually own the house - don't want to jeopardise our purchase for the sake of £100 of disputed fees.

Would be very interested to see what you eventually do...

G_M

SDLT must be paid within 30 days, so no urgency. Does not need to be paid by CHAPS. Full details here.

If the SDLT form completion fee was in your quote, or the conveyancer's terms and conditions, then you'll have to pay it. If not it should be included within the £750 professional fee.

Another option is to complete it yourself. It's a long and somewhat complex form, but comes with a guide, and the tax office will answer questions on completing it if you get stuck! See here.

dr3ammu

I have no choice but to pay the fees too as I don't want to lose the house on a few £100s.

On another note, they insist that immediate sdlt payment is their normal procedure. But can vat be charged on the bank transfer fee?