Paying for property partly with credit card (remainder with cash)

leafy211

I have a couple of bonds due to mature within days of my (hopeful) completion date.  My solicitor has confirmed they will accept payment in cash (80%) and credit cards (20%), without incurring any fees from them. But I wanted to check if the credit card payment will be counted as a cash transfer or a purchase, by the credit card company?
(Ill be paying the credit cards off in full before the month is up).  

[Deleted User]

It'll depend on the merchant code use by the solicitor.  Check directly with them (though you may struggle to get an answer) and then with your credit card.

leafy211

thank you. Will do! :-)

Ebe_Scrooge

leafy211 said:

My solicitor has confirmed they will accept payment in cash (80%) and credit cards (20%), without incurring any fees from them.

They are not allowed to charge you a fee for paying with credit card.  But 20% of the price of a property is presumably a hefty chunk of money, and the solicitor will be charged a not insubstantial processing fee by the card company.  The cynic in me is thinking that solicitors never do anything for free, so will there be some other fee hidden away in his invoice to cover what he's been charged by the card company?  Maybe I'm just being over-cynical!

leafy211

not at all, one of the reasons for me asking them about it again via email, is so i have it in writing :-).   Considering my initial conveyancing quote has gone from £700 to £1900 (various reasons which they should have asked about in the first place before quoting and now its too late to change solicitor), I feel its the least they can do!  Hopefully they will agree with me on that :-)

born_again

leafy211 said:

I have a couple of bonds due to mature within days of my (hopeful) completion date.  My solicitor has confirmed they will accept payment in cash (80%) and credit cards (20%), without incurring any fees from them. But I wanted to check if the credit card payment will be counted as a cash transfer or a purchase, by the credit card company?
(Ill be paying the credit cards off in full before the month is up).  

Is this for their fee's or the actual house purchase?

leafy211

actual house purchase (i guess a small part of it could be allocated to their fees, but majority for the house purchase)

IanManc

Ebe_Scrooge said:

leafy211 said:

My solicitor has confirmed they will accept payment in cash (80%) and credit cards (20%), without incurring any fees from them.

They are not allowed to charge you a fee for paying with credit card.  But 20% of the price of a property is presumably a hefty chunk of money, and the solicitor will be charged a not insubstantial processing fee by the card company.  The cynic in me is thinking that solicitors never do anything for free, so will there be some other fee hidden away in his invoice to cover what he's been charged by the card company?  Maybe I'm just being over-cynical!

Purchase money for a house must be transferred to the solicitor's client account, where it remains on trust for the client. The client is not making a purchase from the solicitor, nor paying for the solicitor's services with funds that are being provided for the client's purchase of a house.

The regulations say that a charge cannot be made for use of a credit card in a retail purchase by a consumer, but that isn't what is happening here. It is a transfer of funds to be held by the solicitor as trustee pending transfer to the solicitor acting for the vendor on completion.

Therefore the solicitors are entitled to recover their actual costs in processing the transfer if any are incurred.

Ebe_Scrooge

Thanks for the correction, IanManc, I've learned something there, and apologise if I gave misleading opinion.  Sound like the OPs "cash advance" question is very valid then (and, on the face of it, sounds like it would be treated as cash), though I guess the crux will be the solicitor's MCC as ZX81 stated.  Every day is a school day :-)

leafy211

that is very interesting - thank you.  if the solicitor is agreeable to part payment by cards, it might still work out in my favour on credit card fees vs lost interest on savings bonds being encashed early.  Hmmm .. lets see what my solicitor comes back with :-).