Property transfer...

Jackboy29

I wish to buy my brothers property when he moves to keep as a BTL property.
My conveyencer wants to charge my brother £634 pounds to sell the house to me and another £800 to buy the place he's moving too.

I presume they will also charge me to buy his house.

This seems a con because from my understanding to transfer ownership is something like 3 forms (AP1, TR1 and SDLT 60) and then sort the mortgages out.

Am i being conned?

Should i say i want to transfer my brothers proeprty into my name now and sort mortgages. and use a different conveyancer to purchase the house he's buying?

Thanks

Doozergirl

It's not as simple as that when mortgages are involved. You need to have relevant searches carried out as the lender will need proof that the property provides good security for the loan.

His fees are pretty high. You could always try using www.conveyancingwarehouse.co.uk for the sale and purchase of his house (presuming you can use different solicitors here) as you will be able to keep the communication lines open between you. They only charge £200 odd plus VAT. You'll have to pay for your searches on top of that for the purchase bit, but you will with any other solicitor.

Red_Cat

If you are very lucky, you might get your mortgage lender to do your legal work (depending on the deal), though for BTL's that might be unlikely.

Richard_Webster

If there is a mortgage then the lender will want a solcitor to check that there is not going to be anything from a legal point of view that would hinder or prevent a sale in the future.

If you are not getting a mortgage you can do your own conveyancing if you think it is just filling in a few forms. You may be lucky and nothing nasty will come up when you then sell it years later, and you will have saved yourself the costs. If you are not lucky then when you sell, you might find your buyer's solicitor asks all sorts of of awkward questions that could cost you a lot of money to deal with, or the property may just be unsaleable. Then you will wish you spent a few hundred pounds on a solicitor to check it for you.