Selling a house pt III
Discussion
Please please please listen to srebbe, do not even think about it. It is a specialised area and the fees are worth it. To be honest I never think the actual fees themselves are that much considering the amount of time they spend, are you sure that the quote you saw was just legal fees and not an inclusive guide of additional costs you will have to consider inc (the big extra) stamp duty; along with this there will be a whole load of costs local searches etc that will have to be done anyway.
If you are having a mortgage then I suspect they would insist on the conveyancing being done by a professional anyway, I had a mortgage once refuse to let me use a sole practitioner and insisted it was done by a partnership firm.
If you are having a mortgage then I suspect they would insist on the conveyancing being done by a professional anyway, I had a mortgage once refuse to let me use a sole practitioner and insisted it was done by a partnership firm.
touchingcloth said:
Please please please listen to srebbe, do not even think about it. It is a specialised area and the fees are worth it. To be honest I never think the actual fees themselves are that much considering the amount of time they spend, are you sure that the quote you saw was just legal fees and not an inclusive guide of additional costs you will have to consider inc (the big extra) stamp duty; along with this there will be a whole load of costs local searches etc that will have to be done anyway.
If you are having a mortgage then I suspect they would insist on the conveyancing being done by a professional anyway, I had a mortgage once refuse to let me use a sole practitioner and insisted it was done by a partnership firm.
To Sell:
Legal Conveyancing Fees: £421.82
Additonal Legal Fees: £116.32
(lenders fee in legal fees)
Disbursment: £43.25
To Buy:
Legal Conveyancing: £457.08
Additonal Legal Fees: £175.07
(lenders fee and completion of stamp duty land tax form)
Disbursement: £347.70 (not necessarily all payable, such as water search, but they are charging extra for the land registry than others do)
Also, the house falls below the stamp duty limit, so why would we have to pay the stamp duty tax form fee?
I am currently looking at local solicitors to find ones with a fixed fee, but I am assuming this fixed fee wont include the disbursement (search) fees?
I have also found a couple of companies claiming to do it for £225, but again I presume this is without the lenders fee and disbursement charges?
wd* said:
Please please please listen to srebbe, do not even think about it. It is a specialised area and the fees are worth it. To be honest I never think the actual fees themselves are that much considering the amount of time they spend, are you sure that the quote you saw was just legal fees and not an inclusive guide of additional costs you will have to consider inc (the big extra) stamp duty; along with this there will be a whole load of costs local searches etc that will have to be done anyway.
If you are having a mortgage then I suspect they would insist on the conveyancing being done by a professional anyway, I had a mortgage once refuse to let me use a sole practitioner and insisted it was done by a partnership firm.
To Sell:
Legal Conveyancing Fees: £421.82
Additonal Legal Fees: £116.32
(lenders fee in legal fees)
Disbursment: £43.25
To Buy:
Legal Conveyancing: £457.08
Additonal Legal Fees: £175.07
(lenders fee and completion of stamp duty land tax form)
Disbursement: £347.70 (not necessarily all payable, such as water search, but they are charging extra for the land registry than others do)
Also, the house falls below the stamp duty limit, so why would we have to pay the stamp duty tax form fee?
I am currently looking at local solicitors to find ones with a fixed fee, but I am assuming this fixed fee wont include the disbursement (search) fees?
I have also found a couple of companies claiming to do it for £225, but again I presume this is without the lenders fee and disbursement charges?
It's called "buying a house". Just pay and be done with it.
srebbe64 said:But why pay over the odds? I have never sold a house before, and only bought one, where we just went along with what the financial adviser told us, trusting him with everything.
Please please please listen to srebbe, do not even think about it. It is a specialised area and the fees are worth it. To be honest I never think the actual fees themselves are that much considering the amount of time they spend, are you sure that the quote you saw was just legal fees and not an inclusive guide of additional costs you will have to consider inc (the big extra) stamp duty; along with this there will be a whole load of costs local searches etc that will have to be done anyway.
If you are having a mortgage then I suspect they would insist on the conveyancing being done by a professional anyway, I had a mortgage once refuse to let me use a sole practitioner and insisted it was done by a partnership firm.
To Sell:
Legal Conveyancing Fees: £421.82
Additonal Legal Fees: £116.32
(lenders fee in legal fees)
Disbursment: £43.25
To Buy:
Legal Conveyancing: £457.08
Additonal Legal Fees: £175.07
(lenders fee and completion of stamp duty land tax form)
Disbursement: £347.70 (not necessarily all payable, such as water search, but they are charging extra for the land registry than others do)
Also, the house falls below the stamp duty limit, so why would we have to pay the stamp duty tax form fee?
I am currently looking at local solicitors to find ones with a fixed fee, but I am assuming this fixed fee wont include the disbursement (search) fees?
I have also found a couple of companies claiming to do it for £225, but again I presume this is without the lenders fee and disbursement charges?
It's called "buying a house". Just pay and be done with it.
It later transpired that he had completely falsified our mortgage application, and fed us a load of guff. Also, the solicitor we used has been proven to be horrendously more expensive than many others.
Thats why I am trying to get some advice. I will pay and be done with it, but I would rather pay the best price for the best service and be done with it, not all of us can afford to just fling money around.
wd* said:
Please please please listen to srebbe, do not even think about it. It is a specialised area and the fees are worth it. To be honest I never think the actual fees themselves are that much considering the amount of time they spend, are you sure that the quote you saw was just legal fees and not an inclusive guide of additional costs you will have to consider inc (the big extra) stamp duty; along with this there will be a whole load of costs local searches etc that will have to be done anyway.
If you are having a mortgage then I suspect they would insist on the conveyancing being done by a professional anyway, I had a mortgage once refuse to let me use a sole practitioner and insisted it was done by a partnership firm.
To Sell:
Legal Conveyancing Fees: £421.82
Additonal Legal Fees: £116.32
(lenders fee in legal fees)
Disbursment: £43.25
To Buy:
Legal Conveyancing: £457.08
Additonal Legal Fees: £175.07
(lenders fee and completion of stamp duty land tax form)
Disbursement: £347.70 (not necessarily all payable, such as water search, but they are charging extra for the land registry than others do)
Also, the house falls below the stamp duty limit, so why would we have to pay the stamp duty tax form fee?
I am currently looking at local solicitors to find ones with a fixed fee, but I am assuming this fixed fee wont include the disbursement (search) fees?
I have also found a couple of companies claiming to do it for £225, but again I presume this is without the lenders fee and disbursement charges?
It's called "buying a house". Just pay and be done with it.
It later transpired that he had completely falsified our mortgage application, and fed us a load of guff. Also, the solicitor we used has been proven to be horrendously more expensive than many others.
Thats why I am trying to get some advice. I will pay and be done with it, but I would rather pay the best price for the best service and be done with it, not all of us can afford to just fling money around.
Don't have a pop at me, I'm trying to help.
As such, use a better lawyer this time.
Tell him/her of your previous experience, and keep him/her on their toes during the buy/sell process.
srebbe64 said:
It's called "buying a house". Just pay and be done with it.
It later transpired that he had completely falsified our mortgage application, and fed us a load of guff. Also, the solicitor we used has been proven to be horrendously more expensive than many others.
Thats why I am trying to get some advice. I will pay and be done with it, but I would rather pay the best price for the best service and be done with it, not all of us can afford to just fling money around.
Don't have a pop at me, I'm trying to help.
As such, use a better lawyer this time.
Tell him/her of your previous experience, and keep him/her on their toes during the buy/sell process.
I wasn't having a pop, but your comment wasn't exactly helpful.
I am aware buying and selling property isn't cheap, but how about we put it like this:
The house we are selling is likely to go for £60k, if we are VERY lucky. The house we are buying is on the market for £82500. We are going to get very little, if anything back from this house, and don't have any savings. Therefore, all fees, deposit, new things for the house, etc, have to come out of our monthly income and on the credit card. If there are companies who will quote me £225 + dispursement, then surely it is better to pay that than £632 + dispursement. But, never having done this before, I don't know if these companies are worth even giving thought to. Also, as it had been mentioned, I asked about self-conveyancing. If it isn't worth going down that route, then fine, b ut at the end of the day, I'm 21 selling my first house, and if I dont ask, I don't find out.
wd* said:
It's called "buying a house". Just pay and be done with it.
It later transpired that he had completely falsified our mortgage application, and fed us a load of guff. Also, the solicitor we used has been proven to be horrendously more expensive than many others.
Thats why I am trying to get some advice. I will pay and be done with it, but I would rather pay the best price for the best service and be done with it, not all of us can afford to just fling money around.
Don't have a pop at me, I'm trying to help.
As such, use a better lawyer this time.
Tell him/her of your previous experience, and keep him/her on their toes during the buy/sell process.
I wasn't having a pop, but your comment wasn't exactly helpful.
I am aware buying and selling property isn't cheap, but how about we put it like this:
The house we are selling is likely to go for £60k, if we are VERY lucky. The house we are buying is on the market for £82500. We are going to get very little, if anything back from this house, and don't have any savings. Therefore, all fees, deposit, new things for the house, etc, have to come out of our monthly income and on the credit card. If there are companies who will quote me £225 + dispursement, then surely it is better to pay that than £632 + dispursement. But, never having done this before, I don't know if these companies are worth even giving thought to. Also, as it had been mentioned, I asked about self-conveyancing. If it isn't worth going down that route, then fine, b ut at the end of the day, I'm 21 selling my first house, and if I dont ask, I don't find out.
Well I'm not sure what more I can say, other than what I've already said.
Good luck, by the way. Buying/selling a property can be pretty stressful at the best of times.
wd* said:
It's called "buying a house". Just pay and be done with it.
It later transpired that he had completely falsified our mortgage application, and fed us a load of guff. Also, the solicitor we used has been proven to be horrendously more expensive than many others.
Thats why I am trying to get some advice. I will pay and be done with it, but I would rather pay the best price for the best service and be done with it, not all of us can afford to just fling money around.
Don't have a pop at me, I'm trying to help.
As such, use a better lawyer this time.
Tell him/her of your previous experience, and keep him/her on their toes during the buy/sell process.
I wasn't having a pop, but your comment wasn't exactly helpful.
I am aware buying and selling property isn't cheap, but how about we put it like this:
The house we are selling is likely to go for £60k, if we are VERY lucky. The house we are buying is on the market for £82500. We are going to get very little, if anything back from this house, and don't have any savings. Therefore, all fees, deposit, new things for the house, etc, have to come out of our monthly income and on the credit card. If there are companies who will quote me £225 + dispursement, then surely it is better to pay that than £632 + dispursement. But, never having done this before, I don't know if these companies are worth even giving thought to. Also, as it had been mentioned, I asked about self-conveyancing. If it isn't worth going down that route, then fine, b ut at the end of the day, I'm 21 selling my first house, and if I dont ask, I don't find out.
I would politely suggest that if you are not happy spending money on conveyancing and what you say above is true then you cannot afford the new house. Wait and save for a while. £225 will not get you much time from a legal person. Surely as its the biggest purchase of your life it is worth the effort and money to make sure its done right.
www.property-conveyancing-online.co.uk/
I used these people for my last purchase,admitidly probably not the cheapest butwere efficient and they operate a "no win no fee" service.
You would still have to pay for completed searches etc but not the legal fee
HTH
I used these people for my last purchase,admitidly probably not the cheapest butwere efficient and they operate a "no win no fee" service.
You would still have to pay for completed searches etc but not the legal fee
HTH
I understand that your not in aa position to throw away money, not many people are especially when buying/selling houses, however there are few things Id strongly recommend when making probably the biggest financial comitment of your life;
1) Dont even think about doing the conveyancing yourself, its a mine field.
2)Try if you can to use a conveyancer as appose to a solicitor, they specialise in the field and 9/10 you can get hold of them (dont go to court dealing with divorces etc) this is important not only for you but also your financial advisor and estate agent.
3)Cheapest isnt alway the best, sometimes you do get what you pay for.
Good Luck
1) Dont even think about doing the conveyancing yourself, its a mine field.
2)Try if you can to use a conveyancer as appose to a solicitor, they specialise in the field and 9/10 you can get hold of them (dont go to court dealing with divorces etc) this is important not only for you but also your financial advisor and estate agent.
3)Cheapest isnt alway the best, sometimes you do get what you pay for.
Good Luck
We are paying £1300 for a conveyancing solicitor, and that is just for the purchase. That included 3 searches, one on the land, a debt search on the property (although its a barn and hard to imagine it having catalogue debts attatched but you never know). Can't remember what the other search was.
Our solicitor also went up and had a walk around the property to make sure there wasn't anything we had missed, but this he does with all rural properties apparently.
Try and get a solicitor recommended, we have used ours for all our property purchases, and my husbands family have used him for all theirs and he is very good.
Good luck.
Our solicitor also went up and had a walk around the property to make sure there wasn't anything we had missed, but this he does with all rural properties apparently.
Try and get a solicitor recommended, we have used ours for all our property purchases, and my husbands family have used him for all theirs and he is very good.
Good luck.
WD, When we bought, we had about 3 quotes, they were all the same which was £500 fee + searches, it seems standard round here, we went with someone who we got out of the yellow pages, it was a gamble and it paid off, they were true to word, we completed within a week of when we requested and I dont recall there being any major hitches.
However, next time (in the same situation) I would go on a personal recommendation and ask my collaegues or friends and family who they have used in the past.
I would be wary of people charging less than half of the normal fee,
From memory it was a lot cheaper to sell than to buy, I recall back in 2002 I bought and sold and the bill come to less than a grand, I think the sell fee was about £350.
However, next time (in the same situation) I would go on a personal recommendation and ask my collaegues or friends and family who they have used in the past.
I would be wary of people charging less than half of the normal fee,
From memory it was a lot cheaper to sell than to buy, I recall back in 2002 I bought and sold and the bill come to less than a grand, I think the sell fee was about £350.
Griffgrin said:
2)Try if you can to use a conveyancer as appose to a solicitor, they specialise in the field and 9/10 you can get hold of them (dont go to court dealing with divorces etc) this is important not only for you but also your financial advisor and estate agent.
Tracey, can I recommend that you check with your lender (Halifax?) that they'll accept the firm you choose to use before you part with any cash. Some lenders don't like conveyancers or sole practitioner firms.
Good Luck.
wd* said:
The house falls below the stamp duty limit, so why would we have to pay the stamp duty tax form fee?
No problem, if it falls below then no there will be no stamp duty, all I was doing was checking that the figures you were looking at were indeed the legal fees and not the overall cost.
wd* said:
But why pay over the odds? I have never sold a house before, and only bought one, where we just went along with what the financial adviser told us, trusting him with everything.
No one is saying you should pay over the odds, the original point was about about self conveyancing and all I was saying was do not try to go this route to save a few hundred quid, by all means take local advice (ideally from someone who has used a firm rather than someone who may be on commission) and source the best conveyancing deal you can. Every house I have ever bought has little foibles that need answering, access rights over shared ground to get to a property, strange conditions in the property deeds that need clarification, ensuring previous development or changes to the property have received the correct building warrants and planning permission. Even with a crap conveyancer they may feck it up but then you at least have comeback against them and their professional insurance, do it yourself and you will have nowhere to go.
When I bought my house I used a solicitor local to the new house. Seemed a bit cheap but came with good recommendations from people so thought it would be ok.
Turned out it was a paralegal not a solicitor and she was bloody useless (and the practice told us she was a solicitor) and between dad and I we did most of the conveyancing etc etc. Its not easy and not advisable.
Just pay someone to do it - I never want that kind of responsibility again - its just not worth it. If you aren't happy with the person doing it - just keep an eye on whats going on and intervene if necessary but don't take it all on from the start.
Turned out it was a paralegal not a solicitor and she was bloody useless (and the practice told us she was a solicitor) and between dad and I we did most of the conveyancing etc etc. Its not easy and not advisable.
Just pay someone to do it - I never want that kind of responsibility again - its just not worth it. If you aren't happy with the person doing it - just keep an eye on whats going on and intervene if necessary but don't take it all on from the start.
touchingcloth said:
The house falls below the stamp duty limit, so why would we have to pay the stamp duty tax form fee?
No problem, if it falls below then no there will be no stamp duty, all I was doing was checking that the figures you were looking at were indeed the legal fees and not the overall cost.
It was more me questioning the quotation than you - they gave us the quote based on the sale and purchase prices, yet still quoted the £50 + vat for the stamp duty form. I didn't know if you still had to fill in a form even if you didn't have to pay.
wd* said:
But why pay over the odds? I have never sold a house before, and only bought one, where we just went along with what the financial adviser told us, trusting him with everything.
No one is saying you should pay over the odds, the original point was about about self conveyancing and all I was saying was do not try to go this route to save a few hundred quid, by all means take local advice (ideally from someone who has used a firm rather than someone who may be on commission) and source the best conveyancing deal you can. Every house I have ever bought has little foibles that need answering, access rights over shared ground to get to a property, strange conditions in the property deeds that need clarification, ensuring previous development or changes to the property have received the correct building warrants and planning permission. Even with a crap conveyancer they may feck it up but then you at least have comeback against them and their professional insurance, do it yourself and you will have nowhere to go.[/quote]
That was more in response to srebbe saying "its called buying a house, just pay and live with it". I am trying to find the cheapest way of 'just paying'. If self-conveyancing is definitely a no-go area then I will listen to the voice(s) of experience, but as I said, if I dont ask, I dont find out
Someone commented that from the sounds of it, we shouldnt be moving, but unfortunately it isn't that simple. We have a tiny two bedroom mid-terrace and a fast growing little boy. The house was small when there were just the two of use, but now that sprog is here, we desperately need more space. His bedroom is the 'spare room' which means all the stuff that was in the spare room has been re-distributed elsewhere. We have no storage space and now that sprog is getting a bit older, he is gettnig bigger toys that we simply don't have space for. The new house has a livingroom/dining room which is the size of the groundfloor of our house, and that is only 4m x 6m. Also, the area is fast going down hill - while they have moved the drug dealer from number 10 out, they have moved new scrotes in opposite us (most of the area is private rented, ours is owned). Also, they are coming up with wonderful schemes such as speedhumps, which mean we wont be able to even get the Robin Hood out of the street.
I am going to phone round on monday and get some quotes from 'proper' solicitors - looking at some of them that have websites, they seem to be about £100 or so cheaper than the Halifax quote - who incidentally said that we could use our own solicitor, but I will check to see if there are any exceptions to that
Thanks for all the advice, no doubt I will be back with more questions!
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