Checking out online conveyancing and local solicitors for fees

sevenonine

My house is up for sale and I have a hopefully firm offer. I have been trying to check out fees online and fees (as suggested in other posts here) from local solicitors. I find that fees from online conveyancers (based in the North) are vastly lower than quoted by local solicitors - the latter being London-based. My problem however is that when I query specific fees from local solicitors - example: File storage fees £45 I asked why charge is made since the files are stored electronically - no answer cameth (hitherto I have had answers almost immediately from her). To be fair I also asked whether the money transfer fee(£45) for both sale of my house and purchase of a new property could be reduced, say to £35. So I guess I've been dropped.

My previous solicitor also has neglected to send me the requested estimate - I had dared to ask for a discount when I was originally selling my house. There too, he had inserted a mysterious extra fee of £93 which I had queried.

Which is why I feel I'll just have to pick any local solicitor and accept their highly-inflated fees; alternatively cross my fingers and pick one of the northern conveyancers and hope for the best. From other posts here the latter is a hit-and-miss.

Anyone here had dealings with (online) 1st Property Lawyers? Also appreciate further advice re dealing with London-based solicitors. By the way my property is in SW London, hence having to deal with sharks!

benjus

It's not just online vs. local... you could use any conveyancing solicitor in England as long as you're happy to do everything by phone/email/post.

sevenonine

"you could use any conveyancing solicitor in England "

Thanks for your comment but I was wondering whether querying fees is frowned on by solicitors; hence am I expected to accept their estimates without quibbling?

libf

I asked questions of a 'no hidden fees' online conveyancer in the North. Fees that weren't mentioned started to appear. I went with a different firm.!

sevenonine

libf wrote: »

I asked questions of a 'no hidden fees' online conveyancer in the North. Fees that weren't mentioned started to appear. I went with a different firm.!

Any suggestions or advice: did you go for another conveyancer and was it more satisfactory doing it on line?

libf

sevenonine wrote: »

Any suggestions or advice: did you go for another conveyancer and was it more satisfactory doing it on line?

For my first purchase I used a local conveyancer and everything was done by email. I don't even remember speaking to them on the phone... So I didn't feel the need to restrict my search to a local firm.

G_M

sevenonine wrote: »

....example: File storage fees £45 I asked why charge is made since the files are stored electronically -
The Title & Plan and probobly lease are stored electronically by the LR, but not all documents, eg warrenties, Planning, correspondence etc

But personally when the purchase is complete I'd ask for the file and keep it at home in a fire proof safe. Along with your will, record of your house insurance etc.
.... the money transfer fee(£45) for both sale of my house and purchase of a new property could be reduced, say to £35.
Different banks have different charges for CHAPS transfers, so depends who they bank with. Plus they'll add VAT. They might or might not also add an admin fee. I doubt a conveyancer will negotiate their transfer fees.

My previous solicitor also has neglected to send me the requested estimate
Don't accept an estimate. Ask for a fixed quote.

- I had dared to ask for a discount when I was originally selling my house. There too, he had inserted a mysterious extra fee of £93 which I had queried.
If you can't get the fees quoted broken down, go elsewhere

Which is why I feel I'll just have to pick any local solicitor and accept their highly-inflated fees;
Don't give up. Keep shopping.
alternatively cross my fingers and pick one of the northern conveyancers and hope for the best. From other posts here the latter is a hit-and-miss.
There are clear advantages to using someone local - speed (eg you pop in to sign instead of posting back and forth) and better communication (again, pop in for explanations or, god forbid, complaints).

Anyone here had dealings with (online) 1st Property Lawyers? Also appreciate further advice re dealing with London-based solicitors. By the way my property is in SW London, hence having to deal with sharks!

Many cheap online outfits have extra fees hidden away so read ALL the temrs of busines very carefully.

Personally I'd walk down the high street and go into 3 - 4 solicitors. Ask to speak to a conveyancing solicitor for a quote. Don't get palmed off with a secretary etc. You'll quickly decide who you feel comfortable with! And get a proper broken down quote in writing.

Now read:

http://www.theadvisory.co.uk/conveyancing-quote.php

alchemist.1

sevenonine wrote: »

"you could use any conveyancing solicitor in England "

Thanks for your comment but I was wondering whether querying fees is frowned on by solicitors; hence am I expected to accept their estimates without quibbling?

Not frowned upon but the margins are very small in conveyancing and therefore you won't get many who will appreciate it. Especially with the online conveyancing factories where its all based on volume.

If you want to barter the price down, "a one-man band" on the high street is your best bet.

devonconveyancer

sevenonine wrote: »

My house is up for sale and I have a hopefully firm offer. I have been trying to check out fees online and fees (as suggested in other posts here) from local solicitors. I find that fees from online conveyancers (based in the North) are vastly lower than quoted by local solicitors - the latter being London-based. My problem however is that when I query specific fees from local solicitors - example: File storage fees £45 I asked why charge is made since the files are stored electronicallyas previously said, not everything can be stored electronically and most firms now don't have capacity to keep files on premises so have to pay for offsite storage. That offsite storage is often via a specialist company who insist on being paid (quelle horreur) for the storage and for retrieval of files. There is very little profit in conveyancing. I've been a residential conveyancer for 38 years and when I first started the average charge was £350-£500. It's not that much more now!! Yet overheads have soared. And if you are having a mortgage you won't be able to have your paper file yourself as the conveyancer needs to keep it in case the Lender needs them to refer to it in the future. I'd actually love for clients to come in and spend a few days to see what goes on behind the scenes, there is so much more involved in our job nowadays with red tape, anti money laundering, compliance issues etc. - no answer cameth (hitherto I have had answers almost immediately from her). To be fair I also asked whether the money transfer fee(£45) for both sale of my house and purchase of a new property could be reduced, say to £35. So I guess I've been dropped. The banks does charge solicitors for transferring money, unless you are one of the big corporate firms with billions in the client account and can argue the toss with the Bank. It's a rip off because overnight and over the weekend the same Banks play the money market (I believe) with the monies and make interest on it, which goes in to their billions of pounds profit and not in to the customer's pocket. Just to transfer monies on completion day can take anything up to half an hour and involve up to three people within the firm in order to ensure compliance.

My previous solicitor also has neglected to send me the requested estimate - I had dared to ask for a discount when I was originally selling my house. There too, he had inserted a mysterious extra fee of £93 which I had queried.

Which is why I feel I'll just have to pick any local solicitor and accept their highly-inflated fees; alternatively cross my fingers and pick one of the northern conveyancers and hope for the best. From other posts here the latter is a hit-and-miss.Why??? Why not ask around and get recommendations? When friends recommend, don't just ask for the firm's name but ask for the individual concerned, as even within the good firms, standards vary from one conveyancer to another! And when you choose make sure you choose a conveyancer who is willing for you to have a direct line number to them (not to their assistant or their team) and a direct email - a lot of us do!

Anyone here had dealings with (online) 1st Property Lawyers? I'll give you first hand experience of having them on the other side of a transaction where my brother agreed to buy a flat only this year - nearly two months before I got any paperwork out of them, an incomplete Lease (and I still don't have a complete lease despite telling them over a week ago), correspondence addressed to the wrong firm and then just copied to me by email(!!! how shoddy is that!), lack of vital papers, didn't check the info sent to them by their client just emailed it on to me and there are several errors in it, and this is just about par for the course in all my dealings with them.Also appreciate further advice re dealing with London-based solicitors. By the way my property is in SW London, hence having to deal with sharks!

As others have said, you don't have to have a local solicitor/conveyancer - just make sure you choose a good one recommended to you. You pay peanuts you get a monkey. Ask for recommendations from people you would trust, then ask for quotes from those conveyancers and try to get the quotes over the phone first to see if you get a rapport with anyone, followed up by an emailed quote. A good conveyancer won't be too busy to answer your genuine queries, but if they are general queries do expect an experienced assistant to help out in answering them. Expect to get responses within the working day if you call before lunchtime, but please don't call on a Friday - the busiest day of the week, or first thing Monday morning which can also be extremely busy. Do read all the small print - a lot of firms now will give you an initial low quote and then you find it is "loaded" with so much for dealing with any mortgage, so much for dealing with issuing indemnity insurances, extra for dealing with leasehold (I actually agree with that one - leasehold transactions take on average twice as long to go deal with because of the associated additional paperwork and information required), extra for dealing with unregistered title (I don't agree with that one unless the title turns out to be complex - unregistered title is a wonderful exercise for the brain but way too many conveyancers nowadays have no experience of it and hence feel they need to charge more because it takes them too long to come to grips with it!!!), and so on. Get someone to give you a bottom line figure if you can but do be prepared because I am finding at least half the transactions I deal with have some complication or other, some simple, some not so simple.
There are a lot of online firms I would actually steer well clear of I am afraid - I don't have any good experiences of them - slow to respond, slow to provide paperwork and then all of a sudden they are push push push because it suits them!!! (i.e. we are getting near the end of the month and they have targets to meet, despite the fact they caused the delays in the first place and still have dealt with all the queries correctly!).

Richard_Webster

When people phoned me for an estimate I would ask about the property and mortgage invovled. I could then give figures as accurately as I could. If the property was local I could quote the actual search fees, but if in another part of the country I would have to give a generic average figure but explain that it would be whatever it actually cost. (When I was doing conveyancing local searches varied in cost from £50 to around £260 or more, depending on the Council in question).

If they were selling a flat there could be quite horrendous fees to pay to a freeholder or a property management company for information - sometimes both and these feees could be as much as £400 (probably more now) and I would have no controlwhatever about those. Solicitors who didn't mention them or gave aridiculously low figufre would protect their backs by explaining it in small print in their paperwork but perople frequently wouldn't understand that was beyond out control.

If they were buying I would ask who their proposed mortgage pender was and if it was one I couldn't act for I would tell them so and suggest they went somewhere else.

I never gave 100% firm quotes because I had done work for nothing in circumstances where there really were horrendous complications. Howevere I explained that this was rare and if I was forever increasing my fees (as opposed to ones like those of property management companies outside my control) clients wouldn't come back to me or recommend others.

I would say in geenral it is important to talk to the person giving the quote/estiumate and ask about possible varaitions and extras amnd why they are chraging for something others are not chrging for. Perhaps go back to a firmwho didn't mention aparticualr item and ask them whether there would be such a charge - they could say defintely not, or admit they hadn't mentioned it but it was in their smallprint or say that you would only get charged it in such and such circumstances.

By talking to people you also get a feel for how far you trust those you are dealing with.

Local knowledge could help. I live under an airport flightpath - not too busy an airport so for us it is no more than a very minor irritation. However it does wind a few people up so if they were buying in my area I would ask them if they knew about the flight path. In a few cases this point or some other point about another local issue might put people off going ahead - but it would mean they would probably comeback to me to deal with another property they were buying!

davidmcn

devonconveyancer wrote: »

not everything can be stored electronically

Can you give an example? There's nothing in a Scottish conveyancing file which can't be shredded, but maybe English regulatory requirements are different.