Conveyancing costs, looking for recommendations

pollylee_2

Can anyone give a rough cost for the purchase of a house in Uxbridge. Looking for a firm if anyone has any recommendations.
Thanks

realitybites

£1000 should be a reasonable ballpark figure.

alexanderalexander

The location of the house doesn't affect the price of conveyancing. What does affect the price is the purchase price (more expensive means you pay more, in part because there's more at stake in terms of the conveyancer's professional negligence liability), whether it's leasehold or freehold (leasehold is a bit more expensive as there's more enquiries), and whether you are a cash buyer or using a mortgage (mortgage is a bit more expensive as the conveyancer has to act for the bank as well).

There is absolutely no need to use a local conveyancer -- any firm in England or Wales can do the job. Except perhaps in very complicated and/or high-value purchases, face-to-face meetings with your conveyancer are pretty uncommon of these days.

Regarding costs, there will be the legal fee (plus VAT), disbursements and stamp duty. For the legal fee including VAT, assuming you're buying a freehold house with a mortgage at say £400k I'd expect to pay around £300 to £500 for an internet-based cheapo conveyancer, and between £600 and £750 for a proper solicitor's firm. The £1000 mentioned above would be excessive unless it includes disbursements.

I will PM you the details of a good, reasonably priced proper solicitor I have known. The cheap online-only ones can be pretty bad if there's a problem....

Richard_Webster

Make sure you distinguish between real solicitor's costs and Land Registry Fees, Search Fees and Stamp Duty Land Tax - they can make quite a difference to the total. The cost of a local Search varies form £50 to £250 or more, depending on which local authority area the property is in.