First time seller and 2nd time buyer...advice !

misssaver12

Put house on Market and after quite a few viewings at the weekend had 4 offers, one of which I accepted at the end of the day. Currently in another house with partner and we have found a larger house we want to move and buy. It had been on the Market sometime so finally got an offer accepted on it under marketed price but over stamp duty :-(

The EA for my property recommend a solicitor for the sale and the rate looked acceptable (£670) until I contact them to also do the conveancy on the buying property and the price seemed a lot higher..(1600 on top) Looking at other companies online the prices coming back are several hundreds cheaper for the combined conveancy...(780-1500 for both)
Slightly concerned though if I move to another solicitor the EA may 'slow down' as they are getting a recommendation fee, I noted in the small print ! Is it best to move to save money? ( i have not signed up to anyone yet ) Also a couple of the quotes I have had including the current one has a small list of 'maybe extras' at the bottom for money searches etc.
As I have not sold before any recommends to look whilst I can for a solicitor would be appreciated. (we are SE)
Also we plan to sell the second house to be mortgage free but need a short term mortgage, by taking out a mortgage on the current house to then be paid off when it sells...in a few months time - it will sell for more than the mortgage we need...rather than take a mortgage out on the house we will be buying... Would it be best to go for interest only ? Contact my current provider and see what they can do? I am aware it will have to be without a penelty fee..who would offer this type of mortgage?

Appreciate all suggestions, the process is beginning to stress me already ! things have moved quicker at this point than I expected ( house went on Market and offers been made immediately) and I am concerned about having a much larger bill at the end for all these ' little extras'..not very money saving !!

Thanks



Thanks

McBozo

seems typical on buy and sale. Personally its hard enough managing one set of solicitors let alone trying to manage two and get them to work with each other.

eddddy

Hi missaver

A few thoughts in response to your post:

misssaver12 wrote: »

....
Slightly concerned though if I move to another solicitor the EA may 'slow down' as they are getting a recommendation fee, I noted in the small print ! Is it best to move to save money? ( i have not signed up to anyone yet ) Also a couple of the quotes I have had including the current one has a small list of 'maybe extras' at the bottom for money searches etc.
...

The EA will want their fee for the sale, so they won't slow down. My bet is it will be the complete opposite... they will be on the phone every few days hassling you to move faster.

I can't see why you would want to go with a solicitor who pays a referral fee to an EA. You just end up paying the referral fee yourself, by paying a higher fee to the solicitor than you otherwise would. (Your other quotes seem to be confirming this.)

misssaver12 wrote: »

...
Also we plan to sell the second house to be mortgage free but need a short term mortgage, by taking out a mortgage on the current house to then be paid off when it sells...in a few months time - it will sell for more than the mortgage we need...rather than take a mortgage out on the house we will be buying... Would it be best to go for interest only ? Contact my current provider and see what they can do? I am aware it will have to be without a penelty fee..who would offer this type of mortgage?
...

I don't fully understand what you mean, but it's probably not economic to take out a mortgage for a few months. There are likely to be application fees, valuation fees, legal fees etc amounting to hundreds of pounds.

And if you want an interest only mortgage, you will probably need to set up a repayment vehicle - which is nonsensical to cover a period of a few months.

(Maybe you can explain a little more clearly about the purpose of the mortgage.)

poormaria

Hi,

There are mortgages available with no ERC charge and very low arrangement fees, val fee etc. Its a slightly higher rate, and I mean slightly, than what you would go for with a standard mortgage but more than worth it if you are going to save on the Early Repayment Charges.

With regards to the solicitors, do not use online ones... nightmare. Clients will often use a local goof recommended one. Sometimes the benefit of using the referred one is that they have a link and so the solicitors work faster for the estate agents in question. Trust me, its not up to an estate agent to slow the sale, its the solicitors. The estate agents don't get paid until exchange/completion

poormaria

oh and not all interest only mortgages need a repayment vehicle but for the hoops you sometimes have to jump through, if the mortgage is affordable on repayment I'd do that. It opens up more lenders to use

misssaver12

That was the plan to find a mortgage without the erc and have it from the house we plan to sell... there is a shortfall between the sale of one house and purchase of the other. Original plan was to sell one house, then look around for larger house, offer and sell second place but we saw a place that fit early in the process and this now seems the most logical route to take...remortgage the current house we are in means the lenders will assess value of this property for leanding rather than assess new property or our jobs as income... interest only assurance will be on selling the house. ..