What is the cost of buying a house?

bumblesquatt

Hello all.

I am new to this so apologise if this question has been asked 4000 times before!!

Using the example of, say, a 100k house, what would be the approximate costs of buying the house? I.e the legal fees, surveys etc. Not the deposit just the fees etc.

Thank you very much in anticipation!

wymondham

not sure, but is it a good time to be doing this?

bryanb

Where are the 100k houses please?

bumblesquatt

i appreciate that it may not be the best time to buy but am just trying to get an idea together and thought where better to ask!

truth be, we are squirreling away to get a deposit together, we are pretty much sick of the flat we have been renting for 4 years and dont fancy moving just to rent and pay someone elses mortgage!

trudiha

Oh, I like the ones I know the answer to!

Legal fees between £141 and £595 + vat, but that's assuming that it is a freehold house, flats cost more, loads more.

Solicitor communicating with the mortgage company fee: £95 + vat, I'm not sure what form this communication will take but I'm assuming that it's via sex lines at that price.

Local search fee: £130 I think this is a sweetner for the Local Authority to tell the solicitor that nothing major is going to be built on top of your new house but frankly they could be searching for anything; even change down the back of the sofa.

Environmental Search Fee: £49.00, this could be to make sure that there hasn't been any chemical dumps in the area in which you are buying a house but if that were the case you'd think that they look on the DoE website for free but no, they don't.

Drain Search Fee: £56 because let's face it, you wouldn't have noticed if your nice new house didn't have drains and if you hadn't noticed it would surely get past your surveyor (I'll get to him later).

Land Registry Fee: £6 Oddly enough you can look this up yourself for £3 but obviously your search isn't good enough.

Bankruptcy Checking Fee: £4 per person applying for the mortgage, just in case you have declared yourself bankrupt between exchange and completion, as you obviously would, wanting to give a house you have just bought straight back.

Stamp Duty, you wouldn't pay this on a property under £125k, of even £150k in some places but like the person above says, where are you going to find one of those? So that's 1% of the purchase price. I don't know where that goes or what it's for, I suppose that someone somewhere must stamp some papers, with a stamp made out of gold it would seem.

Chaps transfer fee: £35 words fail me.

Land Registry Fee: £150, they do have a very nice new building in Croydon which I've often admired and I suppose it has to be paid for somehow.

Survey Fees: You get a choice with this one, it costs £250ish to have a bloke slightly slow down as he's driving by that's called a 'valuation'. The bloke can stop, get out of his car and list at length all the reasons why he can't check things in your house, that costs £500ish and is called a 'Homebuyers' report, the 'beware' after the title is silent. Or for the princely sum of £1000 they will send the office obsessive compulsive over who will write a report so long and boring that you won't get past page 2, you'll keep meaning to read it but, you know, it only takes 25 years to pay off a mortgage and you'll be quite busy during that time.

Mortgage Fee: An amount of money you pay your bank/building society to lend you money that you will pay interest on. It's a bit like paying an entrance fee to get into Tesco, so you can buy stuff. That will be somewhere between £250 and £1000 but if you have a bad credit history, your Christian name begins with a 'B' or you apply in the month of June further changes can be added.


I'm sure that there's but I don't want to appear bitter or anything.

wymondham

trudiha, excellent post!!!!

bumblesquatt, sit tight and keep saving, you will come up trumps in the end!!

bumblesquatt

hahahah trudiha! very good

cheers wymondham, though sometimes feel im sitting so tight that i might start to excrete diamonds! which would solve all my problems!! hehe

wymondham

bumblesquatt wrote: »

cheers wymondham, though sometimes feel im sitting so tight that i might start to excrete diamonds! which would solve all my problems!! hehe

if you can do this, you'll be my new best friend! :j

bumblesquatt

ill keep you posted!

KiKi

Hi there

This is what I spent on a purchase of £185K:

Solicitor's fees: 734.38
Survey of new place (structural): 540.50
Local search: 155.00
Contaminated Land Search: 35.00
Land Registry search: 6.00
Landlord's registration: 16.00
Land registry: 150.00
Stamp Duty: 1845.00
Bank transfer: 29.38
Leasehold Transfer: 80.00

Make sure any solicitor's quote *includes* VAT, and ask them to send you a break down of all fees and disbursements (the other extra bits, like searches) before you commit to using them.

Hope that helps.

KiKi

Rebob

Shop around your local solicitors for their fees and ask friends if they could recommend one. Here is one situation where you definately do not get what you pay for. Also, ask what charges are made if the purchase falls through.