Solicitor Costs Help!

reedio

Hi Guys,

I’m a first time buyer so please be patient, hope you areable to help

I now need to appoint a solicitor to deal with the handoverand quite frankly I’m baffled on who to appoint and what they offer, each one Iapproach give me a price on different products which make it tough to comparelike for like. I have got quotes from my local solicitors whose prices areanywhere in-between £750 and £900. I then went on the internet and noticed thatsome online solicitor’s costs are around £600 but I have noticed they include amyriad of extra costs for additional products I “may” require.

Now obviously I’m keen to get the best value but I wouldlike a reasonable service and be in the house within a reasonable timescale.One online firm I did see what did seem to provide everything I needed (or atleast I thought it did) was Arc Conveyances, however a quick google led to afew threads on MSE with very poor reviews!

The property is in Derbyshire nr to Matlock and Alfreton is£80,000 purchase price and is not a new build.

Cheers for any help / recommendations you can offer.

arbrighton

There are vast numbers of threads on this matter throughout this forum.
Personally, I would go for local every time, and am in the middle of attempting to purchase a house currently where a cheap 'expert conveyancer' who brags about pushing completions through quickly, but at the same time is holding up our exchange in the very simple chain of three, now apparently with no reason.
We paid £800ish in fees to sols (plus searches, chaps fee, Stamp duty (not applicable to you)) and for the amount of work they're currently having to do thanks to middle of chain, worth their weight in gold.
Plus they have an office round the corner from us, and we can speak to them in person/ via email at any time

usupnorth

I would go for local every time. We do. It would only take the slightest problem to make you regret the fact that you can't walk into a local solicitors office, and are instead having to depend on the efficiency of their call handling and postage.

There is every chance that the local solicitors and estate agents will be used to dealing with each other too. You can drop documents into the local office the same day if you need to.

As an FTB, you are not dependent on your own estate agent nurturing the chain below you so your solicitors will be the main 'hub' you deal with. In our first buy, we found things moved much quicker when we directed queries through our solicitor, rather than the vendor's estate agent.

I'm sure there are good and bad solicitors of all types, though!

kingstreet

In your area, you should be able to find a firm offering a fee of around £500 + VAT + disbursements.

Take care that the headline fee includes completing the SDLT return and acting for the mortgage lender. Some solicitors try to hide these fees in the disbursements column as if they are paid out to a third party. They aren't!

Under the heading of disbursements, you'll find a fee payable for a local search, land registry fee, bank transfer fee, environmental search and bankruptcy search.

The total cost will be around £1,000. Choose from local firms as suggested earlier.

[Deleted User]

Take a look at this guide as it helped me.

http://www.theadvisory.co.uk/conveyancing-quote.php

QofS

Hi, Just seen your thread and I would advise caution in choosing the solicitor. We made the mistake of using the solicitor recommended by London Wide Conveyancing who are part of the estate agent company that were used to sell our property. Only after we had agreed to use the solicitor did we understand that estate agent received a whopping £200 from the solicitor for each referral. Since, for convenience, we instructed the solicitor for both the sale and the purchase, the referral fee was double. This commission comes out of the 'conveyancing fee' we pay to the solicitor who then pads it out with fees for 'extra work' like the SDLT return and the acting for the lender. We are days away from completion now so we just want to put this behind us. So be careful and walk away if you have any doubts. We didn't and regrettably it's costing now. The Advisory website - which I was directed to today - is very helpful. Good luck!

MRS.B_7-2

QofS wrote: »

Hi, Just seen your thread and I would advise caution in choosing the solicitor. We made the mistake of using the solicitor recommended by London Wide Conveyancing who are part of the estate agent company that were used to sell our property. Only after we had agreed to use the solicitor did we understand that estate agent received a whopping £200 from the solicitor for each referral. Since, for convenience, we instructed the solicitor for both the sale and the purchase, the referral fee was double. This commission comes out of the 'conveyancing fee' we pay to the solicitor who then pads it out with fees for 'extra work' like the SDLT return and the acting for the lender. We are days away from completion now so we just want to put this behind us. So be careful and walk away if you have any doubts. We didn't and regrettably it's costing now. The Advisory website - which I was directed to today - is very helpful. Good luck!

Yes... i second this... we are due to complete tomorrow and only today have found our fees have been padded out for "dealing with the lender" for sale and purchase (all in the small print of course!) but it wasn't obvious from the original quote that this "additional work" would be required. i presumed everything would be included.... an expensive misunderstanding on our part at £360 for sale and £360 for purchase grrrr.... next time i want absoloutley everything broken down and listed!

Yorkie1

QofS wrote: »

This commission comes out of the 'conveyancing fee' we pay to the solicitor who then pads it out with fees for 'extra work' like the SDLT return and the acting for the lender.

You can choose to do the SDLT return yourself and not pay them the fee if you want.

They are perfectly entitled to break down the fee for the lender too. Uncommon, but it does happen that the lender and the buyer are separately represented.

Try telling them that you don't want to act for the lender, and you'll have to pay a great deal more for separate representation.

It is not extra work, just listed separately. Yes, many solicitors include it in their headline fee but you chose to instruct them so you can hardly complain now.