Conveyancing quote seems a bit high - what would you do?

grifferz

Hi,

We're first time buyers who are house hunting at the moment. We haven't made an offer yet, but we are wanting to be in a position to move as fast as possible when we do have an offer accepted, so we've been thinking about who we will use for things like conveyancing.

Our situation is that we have a 50% deposit but most of that is my partner's. I've just watched my mother get taken for £40k by her partner when their relationship ended acrimoniously. This happened purely because his name was on the deeds, even though he didn't put up any deposit, never made a mortgage payment and didn't contribute to household finances in the years they were together. Essentially he demanded "his share" of what she had considered "her house" up until that point.

My partner quite rightly will not subject herself to that risk and I completely agree, so we will need some sort of deed of trust drawing up.

So, we were thinking: bricks and mortar solicitor that does both family law and conveyancing, get quotes for both and do them at the same place. Bricks and mortar because my partner will have a lot of questions about specifically how the deed of trust works and what exactly it can protect. I don't blame her for wanting to be sure of things where such a big investment is concerned (I do too, but she will require more reassurance), so we felt that being able to see someone face to face might make it easier to get that out of the way.

Our mortgage broker recommended a couple of online solicitors and one local bricks and mortar one, which I got a quote from today. Their quote of £125+VAT seems fine for the deed of trust bit, but it's their conveyancing prices that seem rather steep:

• £700 for the conveyancing itself, plus:
• "Land Tax Procedure" £50
• "Mortgage Admin Fee" £95
• "Photocopying Fee" £40
• "CHAPS (TT) Fee" £35
• VAT on all above £184
• "Money Laundering Checks" £7.20
• "Land Registry Fee" £270
• "Local Search Fee (estimated)" £245
• "Drainage and Water Search" £63.66
• "Environmental/Planning Search" £80.76
• "Chancel Check Search" £16.31
• "Land Registry Searches" £6
• "Bankruptcy Search" £4

Estimated total: £1796.93

Now, this firm comes highly recommended: our mortgage broker has several glowing reviews for them from his clients, and there are a few five star reviews for them online as well. But that seems like a lot of money! I don't know, having never done this before. Is that a lot?

Looking on say agentquote.co.uk the quotes come in between £928 and £1233. Picking one of them that is rated 4.82 out of 5 from 181 reviews, I can see:

• Purchase conveyancing costs £403
• Bank Transfer Fee £20
• VAT on above £84.60, plus
• Land Registry Fee £270
• Local Authority Search £73.54
• Bankruptcy Search £4
• Personal Water and Drainage (Con29DW) £27.60
• Environmental Search £53.16
• Land Registry OS1 Priority Search £4

Total £939.90

I understand you get what you pay for, but I'm not sure the local solicitors can be worth nearly £860 more. I realise should it all go wrong due to solicitor bungling then I would be eating my words there though.

I'm thinking a cheaper but still effective option may be to get some quotes from the online conveyancers that the mortgage broker recommended and use them for the conveyancing, but use the local solicitor just for the deed of trust.

The other view is, £860 split equally between us is "only" £430 each; perhaps it is worth paying that premium to have it go smoothly or else have a local person to go and complain at if it doesn't?

Thanks for reading that lengthy post. What would you do in our position?

lessonlearned

I've just sold my house. I tried an online solicitor to start with and then gave up after a week and found somebody local.

Much better service and cheaper - local solicitor was £200 less than online solicitor.

My new solicitor was recommended to me by a friend.

I would ask around and try and find someone who comes with a recommendation from someone you know and trust.

The beauty of having someone local is that you can go and see them in person if you need to. I really don't think you can beat "face to face" business dealings.

I find it useful to be able to just pop in with documents, proof of id, etc.

Online is not always cheaper and the service can be disappointing.

Like you I will be doing other things along with the house buying and selling, ie wills and trusts etc . I like the idea of keeping it all together with one firm, even if it means different partners deal with different areas of law.

Good luck with your house purchase.

grifferz

Thanks. Unfortunately I don't have any local friends who have bought a house before or used a solicitor for anything, so getting a recommendation could be difficult.

We are on good terms with the letting agent who manages the flat we currently rent, so I've asked them for a solicitor they could recommend. They don't have an in-house one and don't stand to get a kickback so hopefully their recommendation will be impartial.

kingstreet

grifferz wrote: »

£700 for the conveyancing itself, plus:
Land Tax Procedure £50, Mortgage Admin Fee £95

I've just got a quote for a client of £460 + VAT for a client and those "add-ons" shown are included in that headline fee. That was for a £100k shared ownership purchase in Birmingham.

Richard_Webster

£700 for the conveyancing itself, plus:
"Land Tax Procedure" £50
"Mortgage Admin Fee" £95
"Photocopying Fee" £40

So that's actually £885 + VAT for the ocnveyancing. The items above are all ways of making a quote look a bit lower than it really is. You haven't said whether it is a house or flat and what the price is other than (because of the LR fee) it is between £200,001 and £500,000. If it was at the top of that price range it would be reasonable - if at the bottom, especially if it is a house rather than a flat, then it is high.

To me the fee for the deed of trust is actually too low, because the danger is that you will get a standard offering and you won't have any explanation about what it doesn't do. Having such a deed is definitely better than not having one, but it is certainly not a way of dealing with all difficulties that could arise in the financial side of a relationship.

grifferz

Richard_Webster wrote: »

You haven't said whether it is a house or flat and what the price is other than (because of the LR fee) it is between £200,001 and £500,000. If it was at the top of that price range it would be reasonable - if at the bottom, especially if it is a house rather than a flat, then it is high.

Thanks. All quotes have been on the basis of a freehold property with a price of £220k. A hypothetical property at this stage.

ruggedtoast

We started off with Browns who are sort of online though they do have a few branches around the country. Although I wasnt delighted by them they did answer the phone and called me back when they said they would.

The second time I went with a large local firm and tbh I really wish I had stuck with Browns. The woman in charge of our account was useless, never once answered her phone and getting a call back or reply to an email from her was a nightmare.

Their office was around the corner so at least I knew I could park myself in their reception if I had to, but I felt like that would have been a lot more likely to have happened than with the online one.