Costs for buying freehold

HappyG1rl

Do these charges sound right?

Chartered Surveyor's Valuation £375; Negotiation with freeholder £375;
Solicitor £500; Landlord's solicitor £375; Landlord's valuation £300;
Completion of Stamp Duty Tax Return for £75; Telegraphic transfer of funds £25;
Land registry fee £40; Unilateral Notice registration £40 and Deduction of title £65. All are plus vat.

jawa1

Sorry No Idea about the charges. Never done.

Looking at buying a leashold house, Just out in intrest.

How many years left have you got on the Leasehold? What is your groundrent and how much is the value of the house

motch

General question about leaseholds - what happens when the leasehold expires?

zipwen1

think the charges are what he is charging you for doing it for you, id call and ask him.
plus about the stamp duty tax return form i dont supose you know if you can do that yourself after you have agreed to the charges from your sol do you, becouse we are paying are sol £60 for it. i got the form this morn and it looked complicated but if you get help over the phone to fill it out id rather do it myself than pay £60 to sol

jelfs666

Hi, I'm a Conveyancer so thought I'd try to help!

Firstly Zipwen1, you can complete the form yourself (horrible things that they are, used to be just one page... hey hum) and the HRMC website will help. Just be careful, remember it is a tax declaration and open to HMRC scrutiny for years to come if they decide to investigate. Double and triple check the details! What you need to check out is the terms of business letter you signed when you instrcuted your solicitor, how does it refer to fee and disbursement payments? You are obliged to pay for legal work undertaken so check if the form has already been filled in, if not, tell your solicitor you want to do it yourself and it shouldn't cause a problem.

Toots, you could try the Land Registry fees calculator on their website. The two £40 fees are correct I'm afraid (although some regional offices - Plymouth is the one I have most experience of - will do all registration requirements for one £40 fee if all documents are sent together, give them a call if you're not sure this can be done). The £25 plus VAT for the TT fee is also standard (though many firms charge more!), it used to be the case that a bankers draft would suffice when completion was always personal, that is to say your solicitor would literally deliver the draft to the other solicitor on the morning of compleiton. Whereever possible money is transferred electronically these days - Money Laundering Regulations and so on!

The £65 for deducing title? Hmmm.... It costs £6 to obtain a copy of each title (leasehold and freehold) from the Registry although copy documents, eg, your lease or previous Transfers of the land can cost between £5 to £20 each so perhaps this account for it. I would check and ask for itemisation though if you are concerned. Disbursements are really just 'out of pocket' expenses that your solicitor has to pay, they aren't making money out you this way so there is no reason for them to 'bump' them up.

Yep landlords can charge what they like within reason but look at the LEASE website for information about challenging charges. http://www.lease-advice.org/.

Hope that helps; don't be afraid to ask your solicitor about anything you are unsure about and for a full explanation of all charges. And just to stick up for us yes you ought to have a reasonable estimate of charges up front but its not until you start the work that some of the 'extras' crawl out of the woodwork (like obtaining a copy of your lease from the Regisry) but you should be warned in advance.

Eddi_2

motch wrote:

General question about leaseholds - what happens when the leasehold expires?

We are going through exactly this with my nan's house..... I don't even think she was aware the house was leasehold - it's certainly the first we knew about it when a notice was hand delivered just before Xmas to say that the lease expires at the end of March this year. :eek:

You basically have three choices if you've been living in the property for over 2 years where it's been on a long lease.

1. Purchase the freehold
2. Extend the lease (50 years)
3. Pay rent and become a tenant - they asked for £100 per week in the notice.

Because the lease is at it's end the cost of the freehold is astronomical and we're looking at a cost £40-£46,000 plus solicitors costs for us and the freeholder.

For investment purposes buying the freehold is the best way to go but the most expensive. The cost is based on some wierd calculation between ground rent, length of remainder of lease, rateable value of the property and actual property value I think.

Extending the lease is much cheaper but you're still left with a leasehold house and modern ground rent figures to pay.

Staying on as a tenant in what you perceive to be your own house is ludicrous. Our solicitor has just served the counter notice back to the freeholder to say that we will be wanting to acquire the freehold. Not sure what happens next. I suppose there will be mucho bartering of freehold costs and the freeholders will be wanting to send round their own surveyor :sad:

Richard_Webster

Toots, when did you buy this house? If fairly recently then your solicitor should have warned you about the lease length!

sham63

I'm in the process of buying the freehold of my house.

As a comparison, my costs (inc VAT) are as follows:

The lease has 79 years remaining.

I am paying £2200 for the freehold, £420 to the freeholder's Agent, £420 to the Freeholder's Solicitor and £400 to my Solicitor.

So its going to be around the £3500 mark which seems quite reasonable compared to the OPs costs.

Thanks to Eddi for the post above - it's interesting to hear from the 'horses mouth' as to what happens when a lease does eventually run out!

hedgehogpenguin

wow that sounds very cheap. I have just been quoted 12000 pounds to extend mine from 77 to 99 years. Are you a good haggler ?

sham63

I think it's 'cheap' because there's a clause written into my lease that gives the leaseholder the right to buy the freehold within a limited timeframe (3 years) after which I think the price will probably go up. I think this is a fairly unusual clause by the sound of it.

charley1965

Toots, did you have to pay Stamp Duty?