Solicitors fees

fishpond

Would people please let me know today whether they think £2550 are excessive fees for a solicitor who has handled my stepsons selling of his property(house) and buying a new one (house).
This has just been demanded from him by tomorrow(completion day), else he cannot complete tomorrow.
For info this is the first time a fee has been discussed and sson has just rung up the solicitor asking for a complete breakdown of the bill and has been told he will recieve it tomorrow.
PS I have just been informed that sson has already paid £550 some time ago so it is £2000 that is now being demanded by tomorrow with less than 24hrs notice.

Bargain_Rzl

Meaning no disrespect, WHY is this the first time the fees have been discussed? It is your stepson's responsibility to know roughly what costs he is going to be liable for, and although there are always likely to be a couple of hidden extras, he should have had some idea.

BTW if the above figure includes disbursements and stamp duty then yes, I would say that for a sale and purchase combined it sounds perfectly likely.

prutter

I've had a full quote from our solicitors (before instructing them) for sale of our leasehold flat and purchase of a 3 bed house. It's working out about £1500 + vat. So, close to 2K.
I don't think this sounds excessive - depends on value of the properties I guess?

djm1972

Agree with the above - you're in the ball park.

If the purchase price is over £125K then a lot of that is going to be stamp duty, so all in all it's not an undue total for sale and purchase.

If you search for conveyancing firms plenty of them have online quotation tools which you can use to get an idea of what you should be paying.

fishpond

Bxxxxx Painful, but I've just lent him the money.
Many thanks for such speedy replies.
Don't suppose he has learnt a lesson in money management though!

[Deleted User]

Didn't your stepson get a client care letter when he instructed the solicitor? He should have received a copy to sign that should have had all the fee's and disbursements listed on it.

I've recently sold and bought a property and as others have already stated my fees where somewhere around the £2k mark with VAT and other disbursements.

IFA

Yep stamp duty is a real killer and whats the governement say? earnings have risen in line with house prices so its ok. Although thinking about it the amount of people I keep seeing on here earning over 30k astounds me.?!?

Robert_Sterling

djm1972 wrote:

If the purchase price is over £125K then a lot of that is going to be stamp duty, so all in all it's not an undue total for sale and purchase.
QUOTE]

THe stamp duty is not part of the Solicitor's fee.

olly300

Robert_Sterling wrote:

djm1972 wrote:

If the purchase price is over £125K then a lot of that is going to be stamp duty, so all in all it's not an undue total for sale and purchase.
QUOTE]

THe stamp duty is not part of the Solicitor's fee.

Nope- but lots of solicitors make you pay the stamp duty to them rather than straight to the HMRC because they get in trouble as well if you don't pay it. The solicitor acts for BOTH the lender (mortgage company) and the purchaser, and the lender is likely to sue them if the conveyancing is not carried out properly.