Cashback card for legal and estate agent fees?

buddie88

Hi - I'm moving house, have accepted an offer on our flat and we have had an offer accepted on a new home. I'm going to have about £10,000 outlay on estate agent and solicitor fees, which I can afford but I wondered if it was worth applying for a cashback credit card to pay these? Or would there be an issue with using a credit card to pay for these services?

CliveOfIndia

There would be no issue as such.  But a couple of potential gotchas.  Firstly, would you be accepted for a card with a high enough limit?  You won't know until you apply, of course, but it will be largely dependent on your credit history (not your meaningless score).  If you go to the lender's own eligibility calculators, they'll usually give you an indicative figure, though it's not guaranteed until your application has been fully processed and approved.

Possibly the bigger issue may be whether the solicitor and EA will accept payment by credit card.  Given the fees they would be charged by the card issuer they may refuse to accept card payment, in the same way that many car dealerships won't accept full payment by card.

It would be worth asking them first, before applying for a card.

Mr.Generous

Get a Chase card, pay the money into chace acc, pay just about anyone and get 1% back.

born_again

Add in taking out 10K of extra credit while purchasing a flat. May trigger mortgage co to reassess their lending.
In reality, these fee's should have been budgeted before the purchase.

DullGreyGuy

buddie88 said:

Hi - I'm moving house, have accepted an offer on our flat and we have had an offer accepted on a new home. I'm going to have about £10,000 outlay on estate agent and solicitor fees, which I can afford but I wondered if it was worth applying for a cashback credit card to pay these? Or would there be an issue with using a credit card to pay for these services?

Ask the estate agent and solicitor if they accept credit cards, certainly not all do.

Mr.Generous

Chace debit card pays cashback, it won't affect credit raing and almost everybody accepts mastercard debit. It's not a huge cashback but I've shifted a lot of spending to it, I get £5 a month Halifax reward, then transfer enough to cover monthly spending to chase and get £5 a month cashback. I stick it into a chase saving acc paying 5% *

* I estimate all figures on almost everything.

CliveOfIndia

born_again said:

In reality, these fee's should have been budgeted before the purchase.

I may be wrong, but to be fair to the OP I get the impression they were budgeted for:

buddie88 said:

I'm going to have about £10,000 outlay on estate agent and solicitor fees, which I can afford

I get the impression that they're just trying to see if they can earn some cashback, which you can't blame them for 

born_again said:

Add in taking out 10K of extra credit while purchasing a flat. May trigger mortgage co to reassess their lending.

However, that is a very pertinent point, and one which I had overlooked.  The advice, of course, is never to take out a new line of credit in the lead-up to a house purchase.

buddie88

born_again said:

Add in taking out 10K of extra credit while purchasing a flat. May trigger mortgage co to reassess their lending.
In reality, these fee's should have been budgeted before the purchase.

Thanks for the point about additional credit, I hadn't considered that and will look into it further. As CliveOfIndia says I have the funds to cover it, was just looking for the best way to spend it - but the principle of not taking out new credit at this stage means I probably won't be able to use a new credit card to recoup any rewards.

Mr.Generous said:

Get a Chase card, pay the money into chace acc, pay just about anyone and get 1% back.

Thanks - I have Chase but you only get cashback on the first £1500 of eligible spending, and their T&Cs specifically mention no cashback on estate agent fees.

What I'm likely to do: use Chase to pay for £1500 of my solicitor costs, and AmEx for the rest if solicitors and estate agents will accept credit card spending. Not the outcome I'd hoped for - was dreaming of recouping 5% of the £10k! - but better than nothing. Thanks for the suggestions!

SiliconChip

One other thing that hasn't been mentioned is that normally you wouldn't pay the estate agent fees directly, they would be paid by your solicitor using the funds from the sale of your house before the balance is remitted to you. Have you discussed with both the solicitor and the estate agent what you plan to do and obtained their agreement?

gt94sss2

When looking at using cashback cards, you also need to check their individual T&C.

For instance, Chase have a long list of exceptions at https://www.chase.co.uk/gb/en/legal/monthly-cashback-terms-and-conditions/ including 

• Real estate agent and management fees

IanManc

What I'm likely to do: use Chase to pay for £1500 of my solicitor costs, and AmEx for the rest if solicitors and estate agents will accept credit card spending. Not the outcome I'd hoped for - was dreaming of recouping 5% of the £10k! - but better than nothing. Thanks for the suggestions!

The solicitors will definitely not accept a credit card for your reimbursement of the costs they have paid out, such as Land Registry fees, searches, etc. They have paid these out in full, so why on Earth should they agree to receive that amount back minus the fees they would be charged by a credit card company on the payment from you?

As for the solicitors' professional charges, I have never known a solicitors firm accept credit cards. There is absolutely no reason why they should. Fees are paid out of the proceeds of sale, or by bank transfer, or for High Street solicitors you still get clients coming in with a cheque.

As Silicon has said above, it is usual for the estate agent fees to be paid by the solicitor out of the proceeds of sale of the property. However, last night, just out of interest in light of this thread, I asked a neighbour who owns her own estate agency firm whether she ever took credit cards for the payment of her fees. She laughed and said "Of course not! Would you?". She'll take debit cards though. Apparently the transaction costs her around 25p.

With all the hassle of buying and selling property, and all the stress associated with moving home, I'm amazed that you have time or inclination to concern yourself with ideas getting a new credit card to try wheedling a tiny bit of cashback from the costs you will have to pay. But each to their own, I suppose.