Conveyancing fees

debbie_debt

Quick question!

We're in the process of selling our house and moving into rented (long story) and so we're pulling the equity out of our home. So my question is: can we use some of the equity to pay the solicitors fees (and the estate agent fees, now I come to think of it) or will they all need paying before we get the proceeds from the house? I've no idea where we'll fine £2k if they need paying beforehand!!

Thanks

Debbie

Mattygroves2

Those fees are usually deducted from the sales proceeds along with the mortgage before the net is passed to you.

So you won't have to find the fees up front.

Shahni

You might need to pay the conveyancer a small amount up front as a payment on account, normally just £50 or so. The rest is taken from the sale proceeds before they are sent to you.

SmlSave

Shahni wrote: »

You might need to pay the conveyancer a small amount up front as a payment on account, normally just £50 or so. The rest is taken from the sale proceeds before they are sent to you.

Money on account is more normally around £200

bigfreddiel

debbie_debt wrote: »

Quick question!

We're in the process of selling our house and moving into rented (long story) and so we're pulling the equity out of our home. So my question is: can we use some of the equity to pay the solicitors fees (and the estate agent fees, now I come to think of it) or will they all need paying before we get the proceeds from the house? I've no idea where we'll fine £2k if they need paying beforehand!!

Thanks

Debbie

Are you mad? Unless you're splitting up and I sincerely hope you're not, don't sell and move into rented. House prices are going up at an alarming rate. In 6 months, you'll be buying a smaller house if you stay in the same area!

Cheers fj

debbie_debt

Thanks for the responses everyone!

Bigfreddiel we're not splitting up! But, for various reasons, we needed to move areas and needed another bedroom. Unfortunately, we couldn't afford to buy the size of house we needed anywhere near the new area we need to be in. So it was either become landlords to the old place whilst renting a new one, or sell up. We were told the rent we would get wouldn't cover the mortgage, so we decided to sell up. Difficult decision, and I'd normally completely agree with you, but needs must. We'll be saving hard for a new deposit once we're debt-free.

Debbie

Shahni

SmlSave wrote: »

Money on account is more normally around £200

On a purchase maybe (or a leasehold sale if there's a management pack needed), but seems quite high on a sale.

We ask for £50 and I think we've only needed to ask for further payment on account once, where there turned out to be about 10 blooming plots of land to get OCEs for :rotfl:

debbie_debt

This might be a stupid question... but is payment on account some money asked for upfront? We've not been asked for anything so far, which I thought seemed strange.

LittleMax

We have just completed a sale only and did not have to pay our solicitor anything up front. They paid off mortgage, then deducted estate agent fees and their own fees before sending us the balance.

eddddy

The solicitor's concern will be that they do work (perhaps pay for a management pack) and then the sale is aborted at a late stage for some reason.

If you haven't paid a deposit, they may have to chase you for the fee for the work they've done (unless they're offering some kind of 'no sale, no fee' deal).


More importantly, check your estate agent's contract very carefully. A clean 'no sale, no fee' contract is the best.

elverson

debbie_debt wrote: »

This might be a stupid question... but is payment on account some money asked for upfront? We've not been asked for anything so far, which I thought seemed strange.

Yes - see it as a kind of 'deposit' on the fees. As above, it protects the solicitors from the risk of carrying all the costs if the sale falls through or you skip the country.