Pulling out advice & costs ?

veryworried12

Hi. Can anyone advice me please. I have had my valuation back last Friday and it was down from the pre-brexit price we agreed by about £60k. Having tried to negotiate with the seller, they are saying that our mortgage company's valuation was wrong. I said let's get you to pay for another valuation then and prove it but the seller wont of course. So we are pulling out, as they won't budge and have ruined it for us.

All that has been done is the searches by our solicitor and of course billing us for extra time/phonecalls as they bill by the 5th minute (I think about 20 mins of phonecalls). So just wondering what would you expect to pay the solicitors in total for searches + few minutes of advice. The total price due on completion that we agreed to was £1300+VAT. I want to get an idea before I ring them what they should be quoting as I know solicitors love to try it on.

:money:

veryworried12

By the way it doesnt give any specific breakdown of costs anywhere, only totals.

dc197

The amount you will need to pay your solicitor will be less than or equal to £1300+VAT.
You will almost certainly have to pay for the searches as that is a disbursement for them - between £100 and £250 I would guess, depending on your LA and how many you asked for.
If they truly have only spent 20 minutes on your case, you'd probably have to pay for a whole hour, at a couple of hundred per hour. But don't forget they would have spent time on the searches too.
In the scheme of "saving" yourself £60K, this is peanuts.

tara747

It'll be a couple of hundred at most. You're doing the right thing, don't worry

veryworried12

Hi, I don't mind paying for the searches. But I thought that if I pulled out so early on in the transaction then they wouldn't charge me the full fee as this seems unfair.

I didn't say they've spent 20 minutes on my case, I said that they have spent about 20 minutes on the phone to me which is billable.

always_sunny

what does their fee/policies say about it? You'll more likely find your answers there as they may vary from practice to practice.

My solicitor was a no completion, no fee so at most I would had to pay £250 or so.

Thrugelmir

veryworried12 wrote: »

I have had my valuation back last Friday and it was down from the pre-brexit price we agreed by about £60k.

I want to get an idea before I ring them what they should be quoting as I know solicitors love to try it on.

Brexit is an irrelevance.

Solicitors provide detailed quotes for conveyancing work if asked. Worth shopping around.

danslenoir

veryworried12 wrote: »

I have had my valuation back last Friday and it was down from the pre-brexit price we agreed by about £60k.

Why try and wrap this up with Brexit? What evidence have you got that the valuation had anything to do with Brexit?

veryworried12 wrote: »

Having tried to negotiate with the seller, they are saying that our mortgage company's valuation was wrong. I said let's get you to pay for another valuation then and prove it but the seller wont of course. So we are pulling out, as they won't budge and have ruined it for us.

No, they haven't ruined it for you. You made an offer at X price, and I'm guessing you didn't stipulate that the offer was subject to the mortage valuation coming back at exactly that price.

Why should the onus be on the seller to prove that the valuation is incorrect when it is you who is attempting to go back on your agreement with them by reducing the amount that you are willing to offer?

If I were the vendor I would have done exactly the same as them, and the fact that they are willing to let the sale fall through suggests that they are confident they will be able to get another buyer in at the original price reasonably easily.

LittleMax

danslenoir wrote: »

Why try and wrap this up with Brexit? What evidence have you got that the valuation had anything to do with Brexit?



No, they haven't ruined it for you. You made an offer at X price, and I'm guessing you didn't stipulate that the offer was subject to the mortage valuation coming back at exactly that price.

Why should the onus be on the seller to prove that the valuation is incorrect when it is you who is attempting to go back on your agreement with them by reducing the amount that you are willing to offer?

If I were the vendor I would have done exactly the same as them, and the fact that they are willing to let the sale fall through suggests that they are confident they will be able to get another buyer in at the original price reasonably easily.

So if you were the buyer you would still have paid the agreed amount despite the valuation? I wouldn't.

csgohan4

LittleMax wrote: »

So if you were the buyer you would still have paid the agreed amount despite the valuation? I wouldn't.

I don't think it's a matter if , but can't. OP has his hands tied due to the undervalued valuation. It has nothing to do with Brexit.


He can't afford the difference and has to pay all the costs.


It would probably been wiser to await for the mortgage offer before starting financial commitment bar surveys.


Perhaps also consider the no buy no fee, but read their T+C's carefully.


End of the day if the seller wants to sell at X price, no matter how unrealistic it's their choice. If it's a fast moving area with lots of interest then they will be lucky. If not it will languish on the market for months on end.

AdrianC

LittleMax wrote: »

So if you were the buyer you would still have paid the agreed amount despite the valuation? I wouldn't.

Which still has nothing to do with brexit.

It may very well be that the offer was just way above the realistic market value of the property - perhaps due to problems uncovered in the survey, perhaps just due to over-enthusiasm on your part. The valuation from the surveyor is as much for the lender's benefit as yours, to prevent them being stiffed by lending against an over-inflated purchase price giving them a higher LTV than they would otherwise give.

The only thing you know is that the valuer has said the agreed purchase price is too high. Unless you can cover that £60k gap, then the purchase is falling through anyway.