Solicitor Costs

tomleafs

Hi all

Does anyone have any experience regarding keeping solicitor fees to a minimum? Currently my solicitors are requesting a £300 allowance in order to carry out the "usual searches that are required on a purchase". I've checked with the company they use for the searches and they said that the cost depends on what searches are carried out.

Should there be a price I try and negotiate my solicitors down to for this service or should I just ask to see the invoice from the organisation they chose to carry out the searches afterwards?

Is it also worth asking the solicitors to provide a list of the different searches they suggest undertaking and asking for a cost estimate? Basically I'm after some tips in dealing with solicitors and ensuring we get the best possible deal.

Apologies for the long block of questions, this is our first time buying a house and the solicitors are very eager for us to pay them as soon as humanly possible. I wanted to hold off paying them and signing the contract until I checked things out first.

Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated

princeofpounds

The searches are normally charged at cost. I'm not sure if this is a rule but I'd imagine it is.

Yes, you can ask for a breakdown and sometimes it makes sense to do so (esp if you think some non-standard searches would be useful)

UsernameAlreadyExists

The £300 allowance is normally paid on account and upfront. They WILL have to spend a chunk of it on the searches, and you'll be paying them for their time effort afterwards. Quite a lot more than £300 actually. They should be able to provide you with a complete breakdown of all the individual searches (alot you could do yourself and they're public knowlegde) and other aspects of the convenancing, but this will be an estimate (If you're on the phone to them every 10 minutes, you'll rack up their time and you'll be charged at the hourly rate!). You'll should also see the prices for the "out of the ordinary" aspect too, should the need arise.
Are you just buying? or selling too?

jbainbridge

Simply ask them for a quote. All the ones I contacted were happy to email something over the same day. Make sure you confirm that it is what you will pay i.e. no extras. Also most will do no sale/purchase no fee - check this too (though you will still have to pay for searches).

They will do the searches they think are necessary - that's part of the job. They want the money up front beause they pay it on to the thrid party for the search. They won't start without you paying something up front.

tomleafs

Thank you for the quick responses. Me and my partner are buying our first house and have a mortgage in principal so we're not waiting on a sale.

So it sounds like it is worth asking them for a breakdown of the searches and an all-inclusive quote for the entire buying process? I assume that the £300 allowance will get spent and that none is refunded if fewer searches are required?

I think I'll try and get a few other quotes from different solicitors and then take it from there.

shonzyd

My solicitor fees came up to £695 inc vat which i thought was very reasonable considering their estimate beforehand was £840.

lee111s

My searches cost something like £122 and a few pence. It does depend on what searches you need done. Different local authorities also charge different amounts for the searches.

hawk30

The total costs (including searches) will come to more than £300, so no, you won't get a refund. It's not really an allowance, it's money 'on account'. It just means that you have to stump up some of the cash at the beginning.

Yorkie1

Just to clarify the original point, searches are 'disbursements' and are charged at cost - so the cost for this element of the conveyancing is fixed for each separate search.

hazyjo

I was told around £250 for searches, but LB Waltham Forest charge more so it's actually worked out at £400!

Am sure they'll reimburse if they've overestimated, or ask for more if they underestimated. Mine had just said give us another hundred for now, but I paid the £150 extra so it's done and out the way.

Jx

Reformed_Spender

Below is a list of ususal charges, applogies I can't recall the names of a few of them. I would work on the basis of around £800 in total costs.

Solicitors Fees £349 VLT £72 Chaps £36 Local Search £121, £41, £18 £44.2 Coal Search £1.96 Land Registry £80