Fee for Notice of Transfer and Charge

eddiejones

Hi folks,

So I posted about this purchase under https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6073184/service-charge-for-before-i-bought-the-property but this relates to my name being associated with the property.

Basically, 12 months after I bought the property, I found out that the council (who are the freeholders) did not have my name down.
Having contacted my conveyancer about this, he has replied saying that the council charge a fee for this and I need to transfer that to him.

"On completion, I wrote to the Council, telling them you had purchased and mortgaged the property, and I asked what their fees were for the Notice of Transfer and Charge. Those costs were not included in my completion statement as they were unknown at that time. I did not hear back. The mere fact that I had given the necessary notice should have been sufficient. Having been in touch with them since your email, the Council has confirmed that they charge £150 to deal with the Notices. I must therefore ask you please to transfer that to us."

I.e. he is now asking for £150 to do this.
Is this a fairly standard thing? He never mentioned that there *might* be more fees when I completed 12 months ago...

Thanks,

Ed

Tiglet2

Yes, normal for freeholders/managing agents to charge a fee for Notices, so you will have to pay for them to change the name to yours, however your conveyancer should have followed up when they didn't hear back from the Council as to the fees requested and then contacted you to send in the monies required.

eddiejones

Ok, so you think it's reasonable for them to only now say they need me to send them more money?
Presumably this is a standard part of a leasehold purchase? So I am surprised that it wasn't mentioned previously.

SmashedAvacado

It is usual to charge a fee, but to be honest the council have behaved appallingly in waiting 12 months to come back to you. if the letter from the council is from a solicitor at the council ask your lawyer to indicate to them that you are considering a formal complaint to the SRA for failing to uphold the standards expected by a solicitor by being so slow - and ask them to waive the fee.

davidmcn

SmashedAvacado wrote: »

if the letter from the council is from a solicitor at the council ask your lawyer to indicate to them that you are considering a formal complaint to the SRA for failing to uphold the standards expected by a solicitor by being so slow - and ask them to waive the fee.

Not sure that these things are necessarily handled by the legal department, but in any event that would only be fair if you knew it was due a failure on the part of the council's solicitor. Quite likely to be another department who's been slow at passing it to legal.

G_M

Your solicitor is not charging you - the council is.


Yes, the council should have done this earlier, and yes, your solicitor should have followed up earlier, but the bottom line is that the Transfer needs to be registered and fee for that needs to be paid.


You've not suffered any loss by the delay.


Pay the fee and get it sorted.

eddiejones

So I called the council (about the service charge), and also found out that they charge £75 for this. The plot thickens...