Advice please. Pulling offer for another house. Fees back. Survey money back?

xlollx

To cut a very long story short. Offer was put in on house 3 months ago. Vendor not motivated and hasn't been looking at properties, won't set completion date and not interested in moving forward.

As FTB we stupidly paid estate agents mortgage broker fees, solicitor fees, life time membership fees, survey fees being told it would make our offer more appealing. We did.

Survey was put on hold by vendor because she hadn't yet found property.

New property has come on market and we have put in offer and had it accepted.

How does it work for getting some of these fees back or transferring them.

The survey fee was paid to mortgage (Halifax) however, they might not be the best mortgage lenders for this property. Will they give us survey money back or transfer over the mortgage?

Also, what about solicitor fees. They haven't had to do anything yet. Are we entitled to get some of them fees bacK?

Meeting with new estate agents on Thursday who like everyone else says use out broker, he can get you a better deal on mortgage and we might be able to waiver fees etc.

MarkBargain

> mortgage broker fees

Is this normal? Don't brokers usually get their commission from the mortgage provider?

> solicitor fees

If you stay with them for the next purchase, maybe they will roll the fee over if they haven't done anything/much yet?

> life time membership fees

To what?

> survey fees

If the survey hasn't been done, I don't see why you should pay a fee.

xlollx

> solicitor fees

The solicitor hasn't done anything accept for send details of the house move and parties involved.

> life time membership fees

We paid a life time membership fee to the agencies mortgage advisor. Basically he sorts stuff out for us. We can use them for life buying, selling, renting, advise etc.

> survey fees

The fee for this (Homebuy) has done to the mortgage lenders (Halifax). Trouble is, things will have changed in 3 months and they might not be the best lenders anymore. So i'm hoping if we don't go with them, they will give us our survey money back or at least transfer it.

R_P_W

How much was your life time membership fee? Is this in addition to broker fee?

xlollx

without delving into the paperwork I think we paid about £550 for the broker fee and life time membership fee. (Bit of a rip off really, but as FTB you think you are doing the right thing at the time).

We obviously paid out the £500 off for the homebuy survey.

We paid about £300 solicitor fees to get the ball rolling.

We obviously want as much as this back or at least transferred over to the new property.

hazyjo

Shame you didn't come on here before shelling out all that dosh/agreeing to the EA's 'demands'/suggestions!

I doubt very much you'll get a penny back, unless the other house you're offering on is for sale through the same EAs.

Have you withdrawn the offer on the first property? What did they say then?

I would offer to still use them and see if you can transfer it all to the new house. If they say no, I'd definitely not be using them again.

You paid the EA for the survey, or through your mortgage provider? Did that include the valuation?

Might turn out to be one of life's lessons...

Jx

JennyW_2

In the small print of our solicitors letter, it states that if the sale/purchase fails through no fault of our own then we wont be charged any fees and everything will be transferred to a new sale/purchase. As you are pulling from the offer, then I assume you will be charged for their work to date or lose any fees paid. The £300 you've paid was probably for searches so they've probably been applied for.

Valuation - as one hasn't been done, cant see why the fee wouldn't be transferred to a new house. Aren't these paid direct to the lender? if so, cant see this being a problem.

Membership fees - how odd, never heard of that before. Not something I would've chosen - how could you be certain that you'd want to use the same EA and broker for the rest of your moving life, but as you said, being a FTB you didn't know better.

Just try and get back what you can, if you can. If you don't ask you'll never know.

kingstreet

you should not have paid out a single penny until the vendor had found a property and the chain had formed up.

I suspect you've been "had" by a national estate agency chain and its seeming ability to "do everything under one roof" when the services tend to be tied, expensive and often poor quality.

Read your key facts illustration and see what fees are refundable.

ValHaller

xlollx wrote: »

life time membership fees

Of what? The golf club? For the agent?

Seriously, I am struggling to imagine what associated with buying a house would have a lifetime membership?

Dan-Dan

ValHaller wrote: »

Of what? The golf club? For the agent?

Seriously, I am struggling to imagine what associated with buying a house would have a lifetime membership?

might depend on the size of the mortgage

DaftyDuck

Dan-Dan wrote: »

might depend on the size of the mortgage

The size of the Estate Agent's car, amybe?