Solicitors fees reasonable?

Paully232000

What do people think about this as a potential fee for a house sale and purchase.

£1354.88 in total all in except for stamp duty and a leasehold transfer fee.
Does this appear reasonable? Thanks

House sale 118,950
house purchase 200,000

Thrugelmir

Only the fees go to the solicitor. All the disbursements such as search fees are payable who ever you use.

Paully232000

Thanks, but including all fees except the two mentioned, does this seem a reasonable total to have been quoted?

ACG

Its probably a little on the steep side. Here is a quote off my solicitor (although we do get it discounted slightly for our clients). But if your in London or the South in general then its probably not a million miles out.

Purchase fees based on £220,000.00
Legal Fees £360.00 (discounted)
+ VAT £72.99
Telegraphic Transfer fee £24.00
SDLT fee £48.00 (discounted)
Mortgage fee £36.00 (if required)
Local Search £75.00
Drainage Search £20.00
Coal search £39.00 if required
Land Registry fee £270.00 (please note these fees may alter slightly –if purchase price £200,000 then fee will be £190)
Stamp Duty £2200.00 based on £220,000.00 purchase price (price will alter depending on purchase price)
Official Search £4.00
Bankruptcy Search £2.00 per person
Bank Transfer fee £12.00

Sorry, i missed that it was a purchase AND sale. Thanks amn.

Ignore my message at the top. I think the price you have is actually quite reasonable.

amnblog

Are the posters figures sale and purchase whilst yours are purchase only ACG?

dbramley

Depends on region but if that is for sale & purchase and includes all disbs it's not too bad. Worth phoning a couple or see if your estate agent has any deals.

Paully232000

Thanks guys/girls glad to hear that not too bad, but will phone round a few more just to compare. I chose this solicitor as have used before and know people who have and are a good local firm.
Yes fees are for sale and purchase:
Purchase £486
Sale £868.58

ACG

To be honest i would concentrate on service over price - its the biggest purchase of your life probably.

I used to use another solicitor because they were cheap but they were a nightmare (infact i have recently seen a post on here complaining about them). I now use the company i use, theyre a little more expensive (not even 10% more) but the service we get is a million times better.

Paully232000

ACG wrote: »

To be honest i would concentrate on service over price - its the biggest purchase of your life probably.

I used to use another solicitor because they were cheap but they were a nightmare (infact i have recently seen a post on here complaining about them). I now use the company i use, theyre a little more expensive (not even 10% more) but the service we get is a million times better.

Thanks, you are right. I would be happy to use the company that i have given details of due to rep etc just wanted to make sure that I wasn't paying way over what others may charge.

kingstreet

As the disbursements are the same regardless of the solicitor, look at the fee + VAT for each firm and use that for your comparison.

Be careful of added fees which may be set out in a way which makes them look like disbursements, such as "completion of SDLT return" and "acting for mortgage lender."

The better firms include these costs in their headline fee. The others set them out further down the estimate so their top number looks lower, but you end up paying more overall.