Conveyancing costs

Britannia12345

I've just approached our family solicitor for a quote for conveyancing costs on a £270,000 house and this is the breakdown he's just sent me. I've never bought a house before so I have no idea if this is reasonable or not. Online searches threw up estimates of £800 to £1500 but does that include the government costs at the bottom of this quote? 

Legal Fees

Legal Fee £865.00 £173.00 £1,038.00

CHAPS Fee £40.00 £8.00 £48.00

Storage £35.00 £7.00 £42.00

AML (including ID admin fee) £60.00 £12.00 £72.00

Land Transaction Tax Fee £75.00 £15.00 £90.00

Disbursements

Search Pack (estimated) £350.00 £0.00 £350.00

Land Registry searches (estimated) £10.00 £0.00 £10.00

Total excl. Gov. Fees: £1,435.00 £215.00 £1,650.00

Government Fees

Land Registry Fee £150.00 £0.00 £150.00

Land Transaction Tax £2,700.00 £0.00 £2,700.00

Total £4,285.00 £215.00 £4,500.00

BarelySentientAI

Sorry to point out the obvious, but no, an £800 estimate doesn't include £2700 LTT.

Nothing looks unusual in that quote.

Flugelhorn

are you a first time buyer - the LTT would be a different amount if you were 

Sinc19

Britannia12345 said:

I've just approached our family solicitor for a quote for conveyancing costs on a £270,000 house and this is the breakdown he's just sent me. I've never bought a house before so I have no idea if this is reasonable or not. Online searches threw up estimates of £800 to £1500 but does that include the government costs at the bottom of this quote? 

Legal Fees

Legal Fee £865.00 £173.00 £1,038.00

CHAPS Fee £40.00 £8.00 £48.00

Storage £35.00 £7.00 £42.00

AML (including ID admin fee) £60.00 £12.00 £72.00

Land Transaction Tax Fee £75.00 £15.00 £90.00

Disbursements

Search Pack (estimated) £350.00 £0.00 £350.00

Land Registry searches (estimated) £10.00 £0.00 £10.00

Total excl. Gov. Fees: £1,435.00 £215.00 £1,650.00

Government Fees

Land Registry Fee £150.00 £0.00 £150.00

Land Transaction Tax £2,700.00 £0.00 £2,700.00

Total £4,285.00 £215.00 £4,500.00

Seems a bit steep to me - the total excl. Gov. Fees, but if it's your family solicitor, you might be provided a higher level of service. I used a comparison site for conveyancing quotes.

Jemma01

This is mine for comparison

user1977

Millsandovis said:

That’s very steep. I am buying and selling in east London/essex and am paying ~3700 for purchase & sale of a property 4x that amount. 

Why, how much do you imagine it ought to cost? The values affect the fees to some extent as there's greater risk involved, but the job is essentially the same. And there's more to a purchase than a sale.

£865 sounds about right (admittedly some of the additional costs are really just their fees too - checking your ID, doing your LTT return, and archiving your file are things which other places might just treat as inevitable overheads and bung into the main fee)

Britannia12345

Thankyou for the replies 

lfc321

Probably not the very cheapest you could find, but not an unreasonable quote if the service is good. And going with the very cheapest can often be a false economy anyway...