Some advice - FTB

kingstreet

Good job. When you finally get an agreed price on a property you can start thinking about getting yourselves the best deal.

ncrawley

kingstreet wrote: »

Good job. When you finally get an agreed price on a property you can start thinking about getting yourselves the best deal.

Cheers

Just another quick few things:

We are viewing the house soon and hopefully if it's everything it looks from the pictures an descriptions we will be making an offer for it. As I said it's up for £114,950 at the moment, what do you think is a sensible opening offer? Some people have been telling me to go in at £100,000 or even less! The house has been on the market for coming up to a year now I would say, so any advice in this area?

We also got a quote/estimate for the solicitor fees this is what we got quoted:


Purchase price £110,000

Our fees: £425
Mortgage supplement: £65
Stamp duty form supplement: £60
Bank transfer fee: £35

VAT: £117

Pack of searches: £170
Stamp duty: Exempt
Land registry fee: £200
Land registry search: £4
Bankruptcy search: £2

Total cost of everything: £1,078,00

Does this look reasonable? Am I likely to get better anywhere else?

One thing I noticed is the Stamp duty form supplement fee, obviously were exempt for this so is this a mistake or is there a form that needs sorting to basically say we are exempt etc? :beer:

kingstreet

Most good solicitors charge a single fee which covers the SDLT return and for acting for the lender, so there's upto £125 you could save. I'd expect a total fee of around £500 + VAT where those things are included, so your quote is probably no more than £75 OTT.

The SDLT return has to be completed regardless of exemption, being below threshold etc.

I'd shop around for a few more quotes, being careful to identify these additional costs to make sure you are getting a fair comparison. If they aren't mentioned check with the solicitor they are included and won't pop up later in the "disbursements" list as some firms do to make their headline fee look cheaper.