Conveyancing fees when selling a property at auction

t1redmonkey

Not sure if anyone can advise here, but I recently wrapped up completion on the sale of my house which was sold via auction and have received funds and the itemised invoice.  One of the things I was slightly surprised to see on there was the deduction of nearly £1500 in conveyancing fees before the final amount was sent to my bank account.  

When I was initially speaking with the auctioneer, he told me that the buyer would cover these fees, in terms of legal fees I'd only be paying for the telegraphic transfer fees to get the money into my account.  It also says this in the initial letter the solicitors sent me:

Your fees and costs are to be met by your Buyer other than fees for telegraphing monies to your bank on completion.

So now I'm thinking that actually, they've just cleverly worded this because the buyer has sent them the agreed purchase amount for the house, but then they've deducted the conveyancing fees off that purchase amount before sending me the remainder.  So technically the buyer has covered the fees.  But obviously the way I was thinking it would work, was that the buyer would pay that separate to the agreed purchase price.

Does this sound normal to those of you familiar with these types of transactions or is it worth me querying with the solicitors in case they made a mistake?

mrschaucer

I'd certainly be querying it.  "Your fees and costs are to be met by your Buyer" seems unambiguous to me, especially if written by your solicitor.  Why would he seek to trick you with clever wording?

t1redmonkey

mrschaucer said:

I'd certainly be querying it.  "Your fees and costs are to be met by your Buyer" seems unambiguous to me, especially if written by your solicitor.  Why would he seek to trick you with clever wording?

Well the solicitors are basically a designated firm that the auction company use so they get guaranteed conveyancing clients from the auction firm.  I was told when they were trying to get me to auction my house with them that as long as I used their solicitors, then I'd only be paying the bank transfer fees.  And that was backed up in the opening letter I got from the solicitors.  Just thinking if I question it they can say "well technically the buyer did pay your fees, we just deducted them before sending you the final amount".

Thrugelmir

The buyer isn't going to pay both their own and your conveyancing fees. 

Thrugelmir

The buyer isn't going to pay both their own and your conveyancing fees.  

t1redmonkey

Thrugelmir said:

The buyer isn't going to pay both their own and your conveyancing fees.  

Which would make perfect sense to me - if I hadn't have been told by the auctioneer and the solicitors firm that the buyer would cover my fees.  Hence why I was thinking it was some sort of perk of auctioning with this company in that I'd basically not have to pay those fees.

user1977

Are you sure the fees weren't also added to the amount paid by the buyer on completion? 

mrschaucer

Thrugelmir said:

The buyer isn't going to pay both their own and your conveyancing fees.  

I agree it's peculiar, but the wording seems clear on the face of it.  "YOUR fees and costs are to be met by your Buyer ..." 
I'm with the OP in asking if anyone else has had this happen to them? 

eddddy

t1redmonkey said:

Does this sound normal to those of you familiar with these types of transactions or is it worth me querying with the solicitors in case they made a mistake?

It's not really a question of what sounds normal, it's more a question of the contracts you agreed to - you'll need to read them.

Conveyancing fees might be mentioned in...

• The contract you have with the conveyancing firm
• The contract you have with the buyer - e.g. a special condition of sale saying that the buyer pays your fees

But if the solicitor told you in their letter that your buyer would pay your conveyancing fee, you can ask them why you've been charged fees. They'll either agree they've made a mistake or explain why the fees are due.

t1redmonkey

user1977 said:

Are you sure the fees weren't also added to the amount paid by the buyer on completion? 

All - apologies, I've been an idiot.  After reading this post, I just decided to do some sums myself just to be certain (admittedly I probably should have done this first!).  It is a bit of a confusing invoice because there's about 20 different credits and charges on there for various things. 

After working it out myself, it does appear that they haven't charged me legal fees.  I've worked out they have only deducted the mortgage redemption amount (+ ERC), auctioneer commission fee, bank transfer fees and possibly 1 or 2 other minor things like AML checks.

Sorry for wasting everyone's time, it is a bizarre invoice though, they are showing the legal fees as deductions from the purchase amount but after working out manually on a calculator I can see they haven't actually deducted them from the amount I ended up receiving.