Conveyancing & solicitor costs when buying

Bogof_Babe

Apologies if there is already a thread for this, but I can't find one.

Can anyone give me a ballpark figure to allow for transaction costs on buying a one bedroom flat as a cash purchase? Need to build it into my calculations before deciding how high we can go on price. Would these costs be a percentage of purchase price, or a flat fee?

Thanks for any advice.

Fred1_2

Biggest variation will be in solicitor's / conveyancer's charges. I think they tend to be proprotionate to purchase price (dunno why, the work involved is the same, isn't it?) Get at least 3 quotes as you would for any "tradesman".

Searches etc are flat fees.

I think I paid about £600 in total for conveyancing on buying a 1 bed flat last October. Purchase price was £65k.

I've always been tempted to do the conveyancing myself, but have chickened out. I'm told it's not too onerous. maybe next time

LillyJ

We are paying a total of £2000 which includes £1375 stamp duty. We couldn't find anywhere any cheaper without going for an online thing which we didn't want to do (and turned out to have hidden costs anyway!)

Fred1_2

LillyJ wrote: »

We are paying a total of £2000 which includes £1375 stamp duty. We couldn't find anywhere any cheaper without going for an online thing which we didn't want to do (and turned out to have hidden costs anyway!)

I didn't have to pay stamp duty, so it looks like my £600 was par for the course.

LillyJ

Yes, very similar. Unfortunately most of the costs are fixed such as the searches so it seems there isn't a huge amount of variation between solicitors.

subjecttocontract

There will be a difference between freehold vs leasehold & buying vs selling.

Flats are usually leasehold and more expensive.

vwjo

On a 150k property, our legal fees are totalling £2,200 - including £1,500 stamp duty...... The prices don't seem to vary that much.... Online would've only saved us 20 quid.

Bogof_Babe

subjecttocontract wrote: »

There will be a difference between freehold vs leasehold & buying vs selling.

Flats are usually leasehold and more expensive.

Never thought of that - good shout. Thanks.

babydaisy

Hi

I'm a conveyancer - legal fees usually break down like this:

£395 plus VAT for legal fees
£85 Local Search
£35.25 Bank TT Fee
£4 Land Registry Search
£4 Bankruptcy Search
Stamp Duty and Land Registry fees will depend on price of flat

It is more complicated to buy a flat and you may have to pay notice fees etc to the Management Company which your solicitor would only find out about once they had seen the title deeds.

BD x