The Legal Fees Of Buying A Property, Explained By Your Local Property Solicitors
Posted on 30th April 2020
When you are buying or selling a house (in England or Wales), you have to instruct the services of a legal professional, such as your property solicitors in Preston or Lancaster.
The legal process of buying, selling or transferring property is referred to as conveyancing.
The writer, a solicitor dealing in property sales and purchases in Preston, on a regular basis, once heard a fellow local property solicitor, call the area of work, ‘res con’. For the purpose of this blog, we shall certainly not be using that terminology; because it’s awful.
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How much the conveyancing process will cost you will depend on whether you are, indeed, selling or buying a property (or both), or simply transferring it from one name to another, or from two names to one, for example.
Other factors which can affect the price of your conveyance include whether there is a mortgage involved (for example, with transfers this would be called a transfer of equity, or with a property purchase). Other considerations that our property solicitors in Preston and Lancaster will need to know is whether the property is leasehold or freehold, whether there are any additional aspects to the transaction (such as a third party private loan or a Deed of Trust, which you can read about on our Property Solicitor’s blog post, here) and whether you are having the assistance of any Government or Local Council Schemes, including Right to Buy, Help to Buy or Shared Ownership.
We know, we know… most of the above may sound a bit more complicated than it is. And nobody likes to be left scratching their head. To help make matters clearer for you, our Property Solicitors in Lancaster have broken down the types of costs you can typically expect to incur during your conveyancing matter, to help you have a better understanding of what you will be paying for.
For a full quote, and a chat about your requirements, please feel free to contact our team online, here, or email property@mglegal.co.uk.
How Conveyancing Fees are broken down
From start to finish, the conveyancing process can be a little complicated if you’re not used to dealing with it day-in, day-out. Obviously, our expert team includes the highly experienced Chloe Cardwell and Sarah Lees, both Property Solicitors who cover Preston, Lancaster, and the surrounding areas - in fact, they may be able to assist with your property matter all over England and Wales!
Quite often there will be more than one party involved in the property matter, who will all require the assistance of their own property solicitors. Then, on top of any other parties and their legal team, there can be mortgage companies, estate agents, surveyors, and financial advisors. When you add all these parties corresponding with one another, plus the actual legal conveyancing process itself, you can start to see why the charges are what they are. Our property solicitors are however shocked by estate agents fees- they dwarf those of solicitors. Sometimes, the writer thinks they are in the wrong job….
But here we are. Building MG Legal, your local property solicitors, and making clients far and wide, happy on a daily basis. It’s important to note that even though you can find some conveyer-belt style firms out there who offer conveyancing at ridiculous prices of just £250.00, for example, it can quite often be argued (and seen in the reviews, in many cases) that you really get what you pay for - an impersonal, and - sometimes - unprofessional service, that drags out for months, and you are still unsure if all is well at the end of it. Always use a qualified property solicitor-, not a lawyer, working at a conveyer belt firm, with unqualified professionals working on what is the most expensive purchase of your life.
Conveyancing Fees explained
Conveyancing fees are split into two parts;
1. The legal fees themselves. These are what your Property Solicitors will charge you for the work they carry out on your behalf.
2. The disbursements. This is the term used to describe additional costs incurred during your conveyancing transaction that are paid to external companies (also known as ‘third parties’). These can include fees such as property searches, land registry fees and Stamp Duty Land Tax (which you can read about, here).
Unfortunately, it’s difficult to give a set quote for conveyancing fees without a bit more information about your circumstances. We prefer to go through the questions we need to ask with all potential clients, and then we can make sure that we quote we give you is tailored to your property matter.
Some conveyancers will give you a general quote, but we don’t feel like that’s good enough; every quote should be tailored to your circumstances so that no unnecessary costs are incurred further down the line.
Our fees from conveyancing matters can start at just £250.00 plus VAT. You can contact our team of property solicitors in Lancaster for a full quote on 01524 581306.
The best thing to do is to obtain 3 or 4 different quotes and then make a reasoned decision about who to proceed with once you’ve got a feel of the team and the people who would be dealing with your matter.
Conveyancing Disbursements
Some common disbursements you will see throughout a property transaction can include:
- Obtaining copy Title Deeds
This will usually cost around £3.00 per document needed (usually between two and four individual documents), and the documents are obtained from the Land Registry.
- Property Searches
If you’re buying a house, you may need to carry out searches, which look into the property you are buying, including local authority and environmental searches, amongst other. Our standard search bundle is £215.00 (including the added benefit of a chancel insurance policy!). Alternatively, you may decide to carry out just one or two (or none, if you’re a cash buyer) of the searches. You can discuss this with our property solicitors during your matter.
- Bank Transfer Fees
If any payments of large funds need to be incurred, such as sending the money to your seller’s property solicitors, or redeeming a mortgage against your property, there will be a charge of between £20.00 and £30.00. This is a same day, guaranteed payment, to help your matter move as quickly as possible.
- Land Registration fees
Once the process has been completed, and final documents signed and dated, any transaction must be registered with the Land Registry. The Land Registry charge a sliding scale for their fees, depending on whether the property is registered or not, and whether it’s freehold or leasehold, and the type of transaction. You can read more about the Land Registry fees on their website, here, or you can visit our property fees page for more information.
Choosing the Right Property Solicitors
At MG Legal, our team of property solicitors in Preston and Lancaster offer excellent fixed fees (and we don’t mean these sneaky fixed fees where there is a whole load of fine print and added extras!): the legal fees aspect of our quotes are fixed based on the information you provide to us when you request a quote.
We can offer “No Sale, No Fee”, by arrangement, and we quote you for all reasonable and usual disbursements upfront, so that you know what you are going to have to pay.
Our team are available Monday to Friday from 9am to 5:30pm, and we’ve been known to answer emails over the weekend, if that’s what our clients need.
You can contact us for a property purchase, sale or transfer quote, here.
If we’ve not mentioned your type of conveyancing matter, we may still be able to help. Dealing with a range of commercial property matters, as well as disputes, our team really are here to deal with all of your property law needs.
MG Legal – Your Local Solicitors
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