Purchase fees & searches if no HIP

Richard_Webster

On a purchase I would ask for:

My fees
Bank Transfer Fee (I charge £30)
VAT on the two above
SDLT
Land Registry Fees
Search Fees (if HIP provided - just extra ones plus last minute Land Registry and Bankruptcy which are only a few pounds)
On a leasehold flat purchase or some modern freehold estates where there are estate rentcharges there could be extra disbursements for giving notice of transfer to/dealing with a deed of covenant with the Landlord/Rent Charge Owner.

However some people charge extra for:

Postages/telephones and photocopying
Completing the SDLT Form
Separate Charge for acting for the Lender
Separate Leasehold Fee
Professional Indemnity Contribution.
Professional charges for the administration and interpretation of Local, Drainage and Environmental Searches!!!!!!
Completing in less than 21 days from exchange of contracts.

All these things are often only noticed in small print or other pages of a website.

chriserenity

Hmm, interesting. So regarding the above (sorry if this is micky mouse stuff - I'm not a conveyancer)!

1. Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) - this is presumably separate from stamp duty? / Is it a tax that must be paid on all properties and related to the 'Particulars Delivered' to the Valuation Office?

2. If I'm reading your post correctly you re-order the land registry docs at the last minute even if they are already available in the HIP?

3. Does the Bankruptcy search investigate whether seller/buyer is registered as Bankrupt?

moomi

do you exchange first & then complete? Why are they separate things? How far apart are they?

Richard_Webster

1. Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) - this is presumably separate from stamp duty? / Is it a tax that must be paid on all properties and related to the 'Particulars Delivered' to the Valuation Office?]

Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) is the new name for Stamp Duty. The law was changed in 2003 and Stamp Duty was actually abolished for Land Transactions in 2003 and a new tax (SDLT) was introduced. For most layman's purposes they are the same but there are technical differences. Stamp Duty used to be a tax on documents so the Stamps were actually impressed on the documents - old conveyances will show orange impressed stamps for hundreds of pounds. SDLT is imposed on transactions and there are no literal "stamps". There are also technical differences in the way the tax is imposed on some less common transactions such as new leases, but for most purposes the 1%, 3% and 4% rates for over £125K, over £250K, and over £500k have remained and so people still talk about Stamp Duty but it is actually now SDLT.

2. If I'm reading your post correctly you re-order the land registry docs at the last minute even if they are already available in the HIP?

.

No, we have to do a search to establish that since the date of the issue of the official copies in the HIP, nothing adverse has happened, like e.g. the registration of a further mortgage. The search also gives priority. If we submit an application to register e.g. a purchase, within a 6 week window from the date of the search we have priority so that nobody else can register anything else during that time. This search is per title and costs £6 or £3 on line.

3. Does the Bankruptcy search investigate whether seller/buyer is registered as Bankrupt

The buyer - Mortgage lenders want to make sure they are not lending to a bankrupt. If the buyer is not getting a mortgage we do not need to do this search. By post it costs £1 per name and on line £2.