Legal fees - advice please!

alvysinger

Hi everyone,

my wife and I are buying a house from her parents and we had been told by our mortgage lender that we could probably save some money by using the same solicitors for both sides. We've just been in with my father-in-law to see someone and have been told that we'd have to use separate solicitors within the same firm for each side (is this right?) and that our fees as buyers would be around £880, which sounds huge to me. The house is worth £200k and we're getting a mortgage for £130k with the rest coming from us, my parents and portion of the value of the house from her parents.

So, is £880 an average kind of price for all the conveyancing or should we look elsewhere? Any help would be massively appreciated!

thanks
James

kingstreet

It's higher than usual.

It does depend where you are, but between £450 and £550 plus VAT and disbursements is about right.

alvysinger

thanks, I should have been more clear, the £880 was for all of the searches, etc, not just the solicitors fees, which I think came to about £475.

iwantasmallholding

are you selling and buying? in which case £800 is about right, but if this is just the purchase only then its way to high!. make sure you go to a soliciters not a convanancy company, as it will be a lot smoother!.

alvysinger

We're just buying, we're first time buyers, and it is from solicitors.

kingstreet

alvysinger wrote: »

thanks, I should have been more clear, the £880 was for all of the searches, etc, not just the solicitors fees, which I think came to about £475.

It's normal to talk about fees in terms of fee + VAT + disbursements, rather than lump it all in together. That's because some areas have higher search fees than others and you may need extra searches like mining reports in other areas.

£880 seems a reasonable cost for a purchase if everything has been included.