No Sale No Fee Conveyancers

kormacurry

Has anybody used a no sale no fee conveyancer and had the sale fall through?  Was the no sale no fee part of the agreement honoured or was there dificulty?  I thought I'd ask as i'm seeing a fair number of sales fall through in my area (the properties are back for sale on RM long after being marked as sold).     I guess that if you use a normal  solicitor, they would leave you on the hook for a lot of money if the sale falls through? 

loubel

It's all going to vary depending on the terms of your chosen solicitor (and whether it's a sale or purchase). Some will charge a percentage of the fee depending on how far you got through the transaction, some will charge at their hourly rate for time spent, some will charge a nominal fee, some won't charge for the first property provided you go on to complete on another property at full fee. You will always have to cover any costs and disbursements incurred on your behalf eg searches. The exact terms will be in their terms of business which they will send you before you commit to using them - make sure you read them!

davidmcn

kormacurry said:

Has anybody used a no sale no fee conveyancer and had the sale fall through?  Was the no sale no fee part of the agreement honoured or was there dificulty?  I thought I'd ask as i'm seeing a fair number of sales fall through in my area (the properties are back for sale on RM long after being marked as sold).     I guess that if you use a normal  solicitor, they would leave you on the hook for a lot of money if the sale falls through? 

Not "a lot" necessarily, it will be in line with how much work they've actually done. In theory it should always be less than for a complete transaction, and I expect a large proportion fall through at a relatively early stage, not at the final hurdle. Plus (particularly with a sale) the solicitor then doesn't need to start from scratch with the next attempt.

Bear in mind that no sale no fee just means they'll have bumped up the fee for a complete transaction to cover all their time on abortive ones, so on average it isn't necessarily going to save you anything. Also I'd have the concern that the solicitors might be a bit too keen to push through the transaction to get their fee, where otherwise they might advise you not to.

tinytiddles

kormacurry said:

Has anybody used a no sale no fee conveyancer and had the sale fall through?  Was the no sale no fee part of the agreement honoured or was there dificulty?  I thought I'd ask as i'm seeing a fair number of sales fall through in my area (the properties are back for sale on RM long after being marked as sold).     I guess that if you use a normal  solicitor, they would leave you on the hook for a lot of money if the sale falls through? 

Yes, we did albeit a long time ago. The only thing which was non-refundable was the disbursement for searches etc which is fair enough. We used the same people again once we found a new place and all went tickety boo.
We’re in the process of moving on again now and using a traditional solicitor and I have to be honest and say they have been much more thorough than a conveyor belt conveyancing firm.

Good luck with your move!