Solicitors Recommendation - Arggh

jodenice

My broker, whom I am swapping for another one shortly, recommended a solicitor through his packaging company. Their fees were £399 plus VAT plus disbursements. He assured me that the total fees would come to around £600 - £650. I've got them down on my mortgage application and everything. My property is £134500

Their welcome pack came today - it quotes the following
Costs 249
VAT 43.58
Searches 35.25
Pre-Completion Searches - 20
Land Registration Fee - 150.00
Stamp duty 1345
Indeminity Insurance 76.38
Inland revenue Form 58.75
recommendation fee 150.00
total 2337.96

Plus if tenure of property is leasehold an additional £125.00 plus VAT.

Now call me stupid but 2337.96 minus the stamp duty is £992.00


We have a share of freehold on the flat, split between the two of us but we still have a leasehold - so i'm assuming it will actually cost over a £1000

I keep reading on here about all these people that are paying £500 odd and I cannot find anyone to do that for me. Can somebody please tell me if
A) the above figure is too high
where to go to get a cheaper deal (I have no recommendations)

Please please help, I'm having a breakdown here, my *previous* broker did an amazing job of being utterly astonished whilst I tried not to cry.

lynzpower

try conveyancing warehouse, they might be cheaper, they are certainly about 350 cheaper than another quote i had ( but thats selling I guess though so not really comparable)

lilyann1

Yes we have our quote and it is Sols fee of £595 plus vat to sell and £695 plus vat for buying,plus disbursements.
The disebursements are-Land reg fee of £220.chaps fee £35,searches etc which were about £100,then some sold charge for the mortage forms too.Yours sound ok,apart form i don't like the reccommendation fee,the indemnity fee and the inland revenue form,have you checked these out?
My sols wil cost about £1700 to buy and sell omitting stamp duty,but others quoted roughly £2000 to £2200. Yours sounds expensive for the value of your purchase,as we are buying at over £400k

jodenice

No I've been seeing people who've paid about £600 plus VAT and thats their total fees. I've budgeted about £700 I think I've done that one wrong!

Bossyboots

Lets break this down

Costs 249 - their profit costs and this seems a reasonable charge
VAT 43.58 - they have no control over this
Searches 35.25 - this is something they also have no control over
Pre-Completion Searches - 20 - likewise this
Land Registration Fee - 150.00 - no control over this either
Stamp duty 1345 - you already allowed for this
Indeminity Insurance 76.38 - this is the penalty you pay for a cheap quote
Inland revenue Form 58.75 - as is this one (this figure includes VAT)
recommendation fee 150.00 - did you agree this. I would have thought VAT should be on this
total 2337.96

So from these figures, there are more than just the stamp duty that is unavoidable.

You are then being charged add ons that in years gone by would have been included in the basic fee. However, consumers want to drive the price down so they need to make it up somewhere else. Hence the charge for a payment labelled as indemnity insurance and a separate charge for completing the inland revenue form. I am surprised there is no separate figure in there for photocopying. That has also become common.

Added to the above, I would also comment that unless your broker has an agreement with the solicitor, they don't realistically have any idea what the fees will be, other than the ones over which the solicitors have no control.

jodenice

OK so how much should I realistically be looking at paying?

These (below) plus costs and VAT on the total?
telegraphic fee 35
Searches 210
Pre-Completion Searches - 20
Land Registration Fee - 150
Stamp duty 1345
I'm on such a tight budget, i really cannot afford to pay over a £1000. Equally though I may have unrealistic expectations of how cheap it is !

Entertainer

This is why I'm so pleased I do my own conveyancing for nothing.

Those last three charges are complete rubbish like BossyBoots said and should be included in a fixed fee if you've been quoted for one.

Inland revenue Form 58.75

I like that one. Very funny. I suppose putting "Inland Revenue" in their makes it sound all official and time consuming. It's like when letting agents charge £75 for "drawing up" i.e signing a standard AST agreement.

Yours sounds expensive for the value of your purchase,as we are buying at over £400k

This is another con. The amount of time involved to conveyance is exactly the same whether its a £100,000 property or an £800,000 property. They think they can get away with charging you more for a more expensive property because you wont notice and its small relative to the asset value. And it usually works.

jodenice

What should be the average cost then? How much should I be realistically looking at paying overall - minus the stamp duty, which obviously changes from person to person?

Bossyboots

jodenice wrote:

What should be the average cost then? How much should I be realistically looking at paying overall - minus the stamp duty, which obviously changes from person to person?

Your actual charges from the solicitor are not that high. They are actually less than £400 not including VAT. Apart from their fee, the indemnity insurance and the fee to complete the inland revenue form, all the other costs are, like stamp duty, costs incurred beyond their control. The local search fees will vary from borough to borough but the others search fees will be the same for everyone.

I do think you have been unrealistic about the costs of conveyancing but you have been a bit misled by being told to expect it to be £600 in total. Realistically, you would only get the solicitors fees and local searches for that.

Oddgy

We are looky, we are only paying £75 + Vat for selling, and £75 + Vat for purchasing. (+ the searches and land register fees)
I talking about the sol charges.

Bossyboots

Oddgy wrote:

We are looky, we are only paying £75 + Vat for selling, and £75 + Vat for purchasing. (+ the searches and land register fees)
I talking about the sol charges.

That is excessively cheap and isn't even likely to cover the fee earner's time. How have you achieved a deal like that?