Deposit transfer to the solicitor

Roselondon_2

Hi, we are trying to figure out how to transfer the deposit to the solicitor's b/a. As the replies we got from our solicitor turned out to be very "concise" at this stage (long story), we need some advice on this.

The deposit should be 10% of the offering price.

Questions are mainly related to the bank charges - assuming our bank would charge n% over the transfer...

- Does it have to be done by bank transfer? Or the solicitor could either take a cheque or direct debit us to help reduce the bank charge over the transfer?

- Otherwise, is there any means to minimize this bank charge?

- From whose bank account the rest of the deposit should go out? I mean like we have an extra 5% to give in addition to the mortgage.

- If the solicitor is the answer to the above question, does it make sense to transfer all the 15% to the solicitor's b/a but only pay out 10% at exchanging the contract? That might save some fees with our bank?

lfc321

Is your bank account in a different currency? What makes you think they'll charge you n% for the transfer - did the bank tell you this?

Certainly from our account (with HSBC) normal transfers to our solicitor's account are free. If you need to do an instant transfer (CHAPS) there is a fee - something like £25. That's not much in the overall cost of buying a house.

Roselondon_2

Oh, I remember my husband had complained that his bank Natwest charges over every single thing. His branch is in Jersey though.

lfc321

ok, I don't know about transfers from offshore accounts - that might be different.

From normal UK accounts you could just transfer the money (normally for free in my experience) to your solicitor a few days in advance so they've got it ready for when they need to hand it over at exchange.
The actual handing over of money between solicitors is usually done instantly, and your solicitor will usually pass on the cost of that transfer to you - as I said, something like £25 or so.

WestonDave

When you exchange contracts (i.e. the deal becomes binding because the signed bits of paper are "exchanged") a deposit of 10% is usually payable (this can sometimes be reduced by agreement but there are risks to this). Your solicitor will need this in their account ready for exchange. You can get this there via a faster payment transfer which is free (but often has an upper limit - you can maybe do more than one over a couple of days if needs be), or via CHAPS transfer which is normally chargeable - fee around £30 but no upper limit.

When you complete, (this is moving day which may be some time after exchange - the date of completion is agreed as part of the exchange of contracts) the solicitor sends on the balance of the purchase price - i.e. the remaining 90%. Most of this will come from the mortgage company who will send the funds to the solicitor in readiness. However by the completion date you will be expected to have got all remaining funds to the solicitor - so in your case the other 5%, plus stamp duty plus legal fees. They will give you a completion statement which tells you how much this is.

Roselondon_2

lfc321 and WestonDave,

Thank you very much. Your explanation is very helpful.

I think I need to figure out if NatWest really charges or not as the first thing...

anotherginger

I recently sent my deposit in three payments to my solicitor just by using online banking. They were faster payments too, so minimal fuss really.

harvey115

I have an Halifax Online Savers account and there daily upper limit for faster payments is £25K. This has helped me a lot with the deposit and completion money transfers as the transfer are quicker because it allows far more then any standard bank account (£10K).

I transfered my money using faster payment as well by maxing the daily transfer limits of my online banking accounts. The solicitors are able to calculate the total once the whole amount is moved.

R_P_W

We got the bank to do a CHAPS payment to our solicitor and our bank charged a flat fee of £25, however at no point did they tell us there would be a charge, so we complained and they refunded us the £25

harvey115

R_P_W wrote: »

We got the bank to do a CHAPS payment to our solicitor and our bank charged a flat fee of £25, however at no point did they tell us there would be a charge, so we complained and they refunded us the £25

Which bank was that please? Seems like the customer service is good with them... especially on the refunds side

Gizmo247

No need for CHAPS these days. Online accounts are usually capped at around £10,000 for faster payments, so just go into your local branch and get the count staff to do a faster payments transfer for you. They can transfer anything up to £100,000. Just remember to take some ID with you.