Leasehold Supplement Fees

Dunner77

Hi Forum,

Don't know whether anyone can help with this but essentially here's the issue.

First time buyer here buying leasehold ex council house £140,000, mortgage adviser has found solicitors. Homebuyers survey come back good. So got to that stage.

Solicitors now want £780 for leasehold supplement fees, I read on Which expect to pay £150-£300.

Their original quote for and one of the main reasons I went with them omitted the fact that it is Leasehold.
Can I pull out from using these solicitors at this stage? Is there anything I can do to negotiate or more average price?
Thanks for reading and any help, thoughts greatly appreciated,
Andy

eddddy

You can change solicitors - but if they have already done some work you will have to pay for that work.

You can also tell your mortgage advisor that you are disappointed with their recommended solicitor (and/or ask the mortgage advsor why they recommended them.)


It's quite possible that your mortgage advisor got a 'referral fee' from the solicitor for persuading you to use them. That fee might be a few hundred pounds - so the solicitor might be looking for ways to charge you more, as a result.

Dunner77

Hi Eddddy,

Thanks very much for your reply, that makes sense. I had a sinking feeling that something sneaky like that might be at play despite my adviser repeatedly assuring me no fees were involved for his service.
Might as well look into changing solicitor weigh up the costs.
Note to any first time buyers of leasehold property make sure your solicitor's aware of it when they quote you their fees!
Cheers

scriv

Dunner, as you are probably aware, there is a lot about the vagaries of Leasehold at the moment and also an eight week government consultation prior to a government review on Leasehold Reform.

There are two surveys collecting information to contribute to the consultation - one for properties built since 2005 and mentioned on a post on this board and on the Surveys Board, and one from Which? asking you to email them your experiences.

Please take advantage of this one off opportunity to make parliament aware of the many issues faced by leaseholders. A thorough review of the full situation can only help all us leaseholders.

If you look at the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership website and also the National Leasehold Campaign facebook page, you will find this topic discussed at length and others in the same situation and a lot about the question of how much should have been pointed out to the prospective buyer before sale.