Taking out two mortgages, conveyancing costs high?

sarahjk_2

HI, first post here.

I'm in the process of remortgaging my current home as a BTL and i will use the rest of the raised equity as a deposit on another house. The area we are talking about is Liverpool.

I work very long hours and have just trusted my mortgage broker to select a solicitor for me to handle the two lots of conveyancing, however i'm beginning to think i'm being ripped off.

The breakdown is this.
Remortgage

Remortgage of current property for 75K
Conveyancing
Remortgage profesional fee - £349
ANticipated Expenses
VAT on legal fees - £61.08
Allowance for conveyancing searches - £295
Bankruptcy search £6
Electronic money transfer Fee inc VAT - £44.65
Land registry fee £50
Total - £805.73



Residential Purchase for 235K
Conveyancing
Purchase Professional fees - £649
Fee for acting for your lender on your mortgage - £150
Preparation of stamp duty land tax return - £75
Electronic validation of identity fee - £10

Subtotal for conveyancing - £884

Anticipated Expenses ("may vary depending on price location and prevailing rates")
Vat on out legal fees - £154.70
Allowance for conveyancing searches - £295
Electronic money transfer fee inc VAT - £44.65
Land registry fee -£280
Stamp duty - £2350

Subtotal for expenses - 3124.35

Total - 4008.35

SO thats almost £5000 for the legal work for these two properties.

Any thoughts?

Best regards

SJ

CLAPTON

well £2,463 excluding government stamp duty

sarahjk_2

Yes of course stamp duty is inevitable;

SO thats £805 for the remortgage
and roughly £1660 for the purchase mortgage

G_M

Shop around and compare quotes? If you're too busy, then you'll just have to live with the one you've got.

gingerwhinger

mostlycheerful wrote: »

a fair few people do their own conveyancing – yes, plenty of people do their own conveyancing, all you need to know is published in simple guides and tons of info for any and every circumstance is published on numerous websites and in books and in newspapers. It’s not particularly complicated or difficult, anyone moderately bright and motivated can pick it up in a jiffy. Of course so called “professionals” will pretend that this is not possible and that you could get yourself into a lot of trouble but actually they’re just lying and you’ll normally do a much better job of it than any of those thickie loser chancers who end up having to do that bit of low level simple admin/secretarial work for a living.

And, just to further illustrate the point, a lot of people get mugged off about all sorts of services that actually they should and could be doing themselves and if they did it themselves they’d get a much better job done much quicker without wasting all the money and without getting ripped off and mucked about by a twit. With accountancy and agency and sales and all sorts of “professional” services, many people pay hand over fist for bogus “services” as they don’t realise that actually the customer, ie you, does all the work and presents all the information to the said “professional” only for them to then obfuscate, confuse the issue, slow the whole process down, talk a load of rubbish off the top their heads and making sure to often throw in some obscure terms and concepts just to bedazzle the customer and pretend to create an aura of professional mystique and then charge the hapless punter as much as the market will bear and as much as they think they can get away.

Once you strip away the hype and the lies and the exaggeration and the stupid stories you often find that you’ve been conned by a slick con artist thief who’s only got a 2:2 from twenty years ago or even less in the way of “qualifications” and is just busking it and blagging it all the way and is laughing all the way to the bank. Yeah, i’ve encountered a lot of second rate twits and poseurs over the years and i’ve been mucked about and ripped off and lied to and cheated by loads of so called “professionals” over the years. And the media and these kind of public consumer forums are rife with thousands of stories of idiots and failures and shysters ripping off customers all the time. Yeah, bin the jerk and read it up and do it yourself, it’s not that complicated or difficult. Or get a friend of friend to do it for you for free or cheap. But don’t trust untested strangers out of yellow pages and such like.

And, yes, as i already say, plenty of people do their own conveyancing themselves and don’t believe the stupid ignorant lies of other people in the property game telling you that that’s not possible or is a bad idea. It’s doable, it’s easy and you’ll do a much better job of it yourself than trusting a moron with it. Good luck.

nob..........

Richard_Webster

See comments below in red.

Remortgage

Remortgage of current property for 75K
Conveyancing
Remortgage profesional fee - £349 Reasonable
ANticipated Expenses
VAT on legal fees - £61.08
Allowance for conveyancing searches - £295This is an allowance - but you have to establish exactly what searches are needed for a remortgage - many lenders will accept insurance instead of searches for remortgages and the figure could be got down to about £30! So ask the solicitors because they may be quoting a high figure to be on the safe side. If a local search is needed as part of this figure these can vary in cost from £50 to well over £200 in some places)
Bankruptcy search £6 This is a small figure and will depend on how many of you own the present property - so probably OK
Electronic money transfer Fee inc VAT - £44.65 A little high - typical figure is £30 + VAT
Land registry fee £50 OK
Total - £805.73

Residential Purchase for 235K
Conveyancing
Purchase Professional fees - £649 A little more than I would charge but not unreasonable
Fee for acting for your lender on your mortgage - £150 This is a naughty extra to make the £649 look lower than it is and shouldn't be accepted
Preparation of stamp duty land tax return - £75 This is a naughty extra to make the £649 look lower than it is and shouldn't be accepted
Electronic validation of identity fee - £10 OK

Subtotal for conveyancing - £884

Anticipated Expenses ("may vary depending on price location and prevailing rates")
Vat on out legal fees - £154.70
Allowance for conveyancing searches - £295 Again these will vary from area to area and will depend on what searches the particular lender requires - I usually tell clients about £260 but say that sometimes we can save on that figure
Electronic money transfer fee inc VAT - £44.65 See comment above on this
Land registry fee -£280 OK
Stamp duty - £2350 OK

Subtotal for expenses - 3124.35

Total - 4008.35

SO thats almost £5000 for the legal work for these two properties.

You are stuck with the SDLT and Land Registry Fees whatever happens - that's £2,580. Professional fees of say £950 + VAT (£1,116.25) plus about £70 inc VAT at for Bank Transfers would be reasonable. That's £3,766.25

The searches depend on the Council's charges in the area and what searches reach mortgage lender requires so they could be anything from about £130 (say £30 for remortgage and £100 for purchase) up to the £590 (£295 x 2) quoted. So with other bits and pieces the figure could be around £3,900 or £4,250 altogether.

My overall conclusion is that the estimate for the purchase is a bit high because of the extra fees for the SDLT form and acting for the lender. The scope for reducing the cost is there and possibly with the searches if they do not turn out to be as expensive as suggested. The "allow £295" is fair enough because without doing a detailed check of all the precise location of the property and the requirements of the mortgage lenders it is difficult to be more accurate and perhaps safer to give a relatively high figure which can be reduced than a low one. I would guess Liverpool doesn't have any mining but you wouldn't need to go very far to be in a mining area so a solicitor there would allow another £30 or so in their search figures for that possibility as well.

So figures high but a lot of it you are stuck with anyway.

timmyt

sarahjk wrote: »

HI, first post here.

I'm in the process of remortgaging my current home as a BTL and i will use the rest of the raised equity as a deposit on another house. The area we are talking about is Liverpool.

I work very long hours and have just trusted my mortgage broker to select a solicitor for me to handle the two lots of conveyancing, however i'm beginning to think i'm being ripped off.

The breakdown is this.
Remortgage

Remortgage of current property for 75K
Conveyancing
Remortgage profesional fee - £349
ANticipated Expenses
VAT on legal fees - £61.08
Allowance for conveyancing searches - £295 - there are no searches on a remortgage. always search insurance £40.
Bankruptcy search £6
Electronic money transfer Fee inc VAT - £44.65 should be £35 max
Land registry fee £50
Total - £805.73



Residential Purchase for 235K
Conveyancing
Purchase Professional fees - £649 ok
Fee for acting for your lender on your mortgage - £150 pure profit terrible as the £649 should include that
Preparation of stamp duty land tax return - £75 terribloe terrible ditto reason
Electronic validation of identity fee - £10

Subtotal for conveyancing - £884

Anticipated Expenses ("may vary depending on price location and prevailing rates")
Vat on out legal fees - £154.70
Allowance for conveyancing searches - £295
Electronic money transfer fee inc VAT - £44.65
Land registry fee -£280
Stamp duty - £2350

Subtotal for expenses - 3124.35

Total - 4008.35

SO thats almost £5000 for the legal work for these two properties.

Any thoughts?

Best regards

SJ

who are the law firm OP? terrible add ons