robby

Does anyone have a rouch price for solicitors fees when moving house?

We've just sold our house so need 1 to do the sale of our current house and the purchase of the new house - no mortgage involved
The estate agent has a recommended 1 but in the small print a £150 as a referal fee from the solicitor to the agent is added - sod that we'll get our own

chris singleton

As with most things price varies a great deal.

You can get it done by some conveyancing bucket shop for probably £400 plus vat on each transaction (ie £800.00 plus vat - plus your disbursements such as stamp duty, search fees, registration fees, etc).

Forget who the agents recommend, especially if they are paying a referal fee as you mention. I think referal fees should be banned but that's never going to happen.

I'd speak to your friends, family etc to see who they used and whether they were impressed or not, I get nearly all of my work through recommendation and repeat business. We won't pay agents for work and anyone who does IMHO is carp! If you don't know anyone who's moved recently then speak to a few local solicitors and see whether or not you get a good "vibe" from any of them. I wouldn't expect there to be more than £100-200 difference between local firms.

I can't stress enough, don't go with the cheapest, buying a house is one of the biggest and most important financial decisions you will ever make and it still amazes me that people will go with the cheapest outfit.

SunnySideUp

Conveyancing is simplicity itself ... all the forms are there, it's been done a million times - unless there are any unusual qwerks then ignore the over-priced Solicitors who say they offer a 'super' service (it's speak for 'we are ripping you off').

You can haggle the rates down quite easily .... not many houses are changing hands and they are desperate for the business - I am negotiating with Solicitors at the moment to buy a property - they are all willing to fight against each other on price. Some will act for your lender too, for free, saving you more money.

Type it in google and you will get 100's of hits ........ you will find a local Solicitor who will match the bucket shops - and that's the way to go.

Good luck, haggle hard!

OH, and make sure you get an 'ALL Inclusive Quotation'!! It's too easy to add extras on later ..... and a Quotation has a different legal meaning than an Estimate ...... make sure it's a QUOTE you get!

Timwinner

iTrader: (3)

Expect to pay between £400 - £800 for that, I found that you get what you pay for with these people, Never has the "pay peanuts get monkeys" been more relevant in my experience.

gingerboy

From memory the last house sale we did and subsequent purchase of a piece of land that needed new boundaries drawing up and registering with the land registry we paid £760........ there was quite a bit of work involved because of the land registry element and also 2 "insurance policies" to cover costs just in case, 1 for the drains which ran under our neighbours house and the other for an old extension that was over 30 years old and we did not have proof of building regs........

At the moment though I would haggle like hell!

GB

tarmac terror

iTrader: (2)

I bought a 13 year old house back in November - I obtained 4 quotes from local solicitors, all of them were keen to rival their competitors. The bizarre thing was that I discovered their fee is based on the purchase price of the property.

£300K property = £650 professional fee

Will

I paid £800. in november 2007