Conveyancing quote and recommendations

[Maxf]

I'm selling a leasehold flat and buying a freehold house (both in London) and have been quoted £4500 in legal fees (inc VAT and searches). Does this sound high?

Can anybody recommend a decent conveyancer?

[Sarnie]

Max......I have a great solicitor......that price is a little bit.............erm............punchy??

[Maxf]

Yeah, this was a 'proper' solicitor, but last time, in 2014, the buy/sell (both leasehold this time) was £2700.

[Mortgage_tom]

Are you sure the quote doesn't include stamp duty?

[Maxf]

yep - wish it did!

[kurt535]

Fosters Solicitors - Norwich.

[dalenorth]

Try e-conveyancer

[mikeh501]

How much of that is legal fees? Stripping out searches and checks.

Just paid 450 for a straight freehold purchase minus searches.

[shopper150]

dalenorth said:

Try e-conveyancer

Don’t. If the person handling your case is on annual leave etc they will just delay. They don’t give a toss.

[anonymous-user]

I did a bit and sell a couple of years ago. Came to about 1800 if I recall correctly.

[anonymous-user]

Hard to say without knowing the property values. Could be expensive, could be cheap.

[Sarnie]

Being Leasehold increases the costs too............not much point people posting what they paid if they aren't like for like............

[Maxf]

All sorted - thanks all.

To help anybody searching in the future...

We ended up getting a few quotes. All excluded stamp but included searches - some charged VAT on the searches and some didnt. All were 'proper' bricks and mortar legal practices, none were long distance e-conveyancing types.

£4,500
£4,200
£3,300
£3,150
£2,750

We went with the £3,150 quote which was a smaller, 2 partner, firm but a partner would be dealing. The cheapest one I'd used before, but he took a few days to respond with the quote and wasn't always the easiest to get hold of on the phone last time. The most expensive was one the estate agents recommended, the other two were from google.

For completeness, the purchase is £750k, the sale is £515k - both in SE London.