House Purchase Conveyancing Quote

About Your Purchase Conveyancing Quote

Your purchase conveyancing quote is made up of a number of different components, some of which we can control, and others which we can’t.

Conveyancing Legal Fees

The first component is the legal fee. This is the fee we charge you for our work. In other words, it is what you pay for our lawyers’ time looking after your purchase.If you compare this to a mechanic or plumber, this is the labour charge for the entire transaction.

The fee varies depending on the price of the property, because the level of responsibility increases for more expensive purchases.

However, because we’re Best Value Conveyancing we have kept our fees down so that they are competitive and represent good value for money.

There are three possible additional components in your quote for the legal fee. We charge a small additional fee for mortgaged transactions. This is because when you take out a mortgage we are instructed to advise and act for the mortgage company on the transaction as well as you, so we have to undertake additional work which they don’t pay us for. We also have to advise you on the mortgage deed. It’s obviously important that you should know what your rights and liabilities are before you enter into the biggest financial transaction you’re likely to get involved with.

We also charge a small additional fee for leasehold transactions. Again this is because there is extra work involved in advising you of your rights and duties under the lease document, and ensuring you know what you need to about things like service charges, ground rents, repair obligations for common areas, and other such issues. We also often have to deal with third parties, such as managing agents.

Shared ownership schemes also attract a small extra fee. This is because of the extra work involved in dealing with such schemes, as they involve advice on both a normal mortgage transaction, and on aspects of a lease. There are usually complicated provisions to do with the different shares in the property, management and maintenance, and the rental aspects.

Note that some providers on the internet do not quote these fees upfront. They’re added later on or mentioned elsewhere in the website. We’re totally transparent and our fees are fixed with no extras.

Regrettably we also have to charge VAT at the current rate on our fees.

Disbursements

Disbursements are the various other expenses which are associated with purchasing a property and ensuring that you have good legal title and there are no problems with your proposed purchase. Think of them as the parts aspect of the transaction – we have to have them to do a proper job, but we have less ability to control their amount. The disbursements on any transaction will not vary a great between solicitors

We have set out the details of the most common disbursements below:

Stamp Duty Land Tax

This is a tax which the UK Government charges on land and property transactions. The amount depends on the size of the property transaction. Purchases of up to and including £125,000 do not attract the tax, from £125,000.01 up to and including £250,000 are charged at 1% (so for a £200,000 house it is 1% of that figure, £2,000), £250,000.01 to £500,000 is 3%, £500,000.01 to £1M is 4% and higher fees above that price. We have no control over the amount of tax but we can advise you on how it works. This is always the most significant and sizeable element in any quote we give.

When paying your Stamp Duty Land Tax we have to submit a detailed form which sets out the necessary figures for HMRC to determine and settle the SDLT liability. There is a small fee for this important task.

Identity Check

This is a small fee for verifying your identity. All solicitors and other regulated professionals must be satisfied who they’re dealing with in order to reduce the risk of money laundering. Again, this is a legal requirement, but the fee is very small.

Bankruptcy search

This is a small fee to check with the Official Receiver that no party to the transaction is a bankrupt. Where there is a bankruptcy interest it is necessary to deal with the trustee in bankruptcy or the Official Receiver in respect of the bankrupt’s interest in the property. This is most relevant in mortgaged transactions and is charged at £2 per name.

Land Registry Registration Fee

A small fee charged by HM Land Registry to register the change in ownership. This helps to secure your interest in the property once you’ve bought it.

Searches

The other sizeable disbursement in any purchase is the search fee component. We can’t include this in the quotation engine because the figure always varies, but you should budget for a figure of around £200.

Searches are enquiries we make with various official organisations to ensure that there are no hidden problems with your proposed purchase. It will tell you a variety of things, ranging from whether the Council is about to have a road built through your back garden, whether the house was built on top of an old rubbish dump, whether you might suffer subsidence because there’s an old mine underneath it, and even whether there might be radioactive Radon gas in the area! If you’re buying in the HS2 area we can check the route of that, or if you’re near a church we can find out whether you need insurance to pay for chancel repairs (some old buildings require local homeowners to pay for the upkeep of the church!)

We also check with the Land Registry that there have been no changes to the Register in the period since we obtained your Office Copy of the document. This, referred to as an OS1 search, makes sure that changes such as new mortgages have been taken out on the property in the meantime.

It’s important you have these checks undertaken to make sure there are no problems later. If a search picks up something of concern you can decide whether you still wish to go ahead, and you can take out insurance for the risk that there may be a problem. If you don’t have the searches done you may find there is a major or expensive difficulty later on.

The principle of caveat emptor (buyer beware) also applies here. Once contracts have been exchanged any liability is with the buyer of the property, so it is important before the exchange of contracts to make sure that there are no hidden liabilities or problems. Our expert conveyancing advice, and an appropriate bundle of searches, will protect you from these risks.

Bank Fees

The banks charge us a sum for sending money through their system. All funds in purchases are sent electronically via the banking network, and we have to pay the fee the bank levies for this.