£380 for searches pack - rip off?

Oliver_Green

MartinLB wrote: »

Received the below email from MoveWithUs - apparently we have to pay them almost £380 for searches before we can instruct our solicitors, but I do not believe there is any need for these searches. We're going to pay for a full structural survey, and there's no risk of flooding due to the property being on a hill.

Just to let you know the £376.58 that we need to take in advance is for the standard search pack which consists of the local search, the water & drainage search, the environmental search and the chancel check indemnity policy.

Thoughts?

Martin

Hi Martin,

Just reading your post and really, this is something you should have enquired about from the outset - this is of course taking the view that you were aware of the searches from the outset.

When purchasing a property, Solicitors will usually advise you to purchase searches.

At this stage, if you are not sure what their charges represent then ask for a specific breakdown for each. You need to ask for the cost price and then enquire if they are charging an admin fee on top.

If you then ask them to put this in writing to you then you can decide what you want to do from that stage on.

Ciao, Oliver Green