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So we have the breakdown of fees from a few solicitors.
£50 to return a Stamp Duty Land Tax form. The property is too cheap to have to pay any - why £50?? Looks like the form can be done online through HMRC - does a solicitor or someone official have to complete it?
Are searches compulsory - there's no mortgage being applied for.
Thanks for any guidance, £850 seems steep in this very simple, cash purchase.
You pay them to check the forms, make sure they are filled in correctly pay indemnity insurance for any mistakes they make etc.
You also pay a large amount for them to sit around, avoid your calls, ignore your emails, drink tea and right at the last minute rescue the sale by doing something they were paid to do 2 months earlier but failed to as they were focusing on the items earlier in the list.
Searches are not compulsory, but it depends on how much risk you want to take, it's worth checking is there a charge against the house, who really owns it etc etc, to stop it being taken away. If it's on dodgy ground etc. But you can order the searches yourself, I've not known a solicitor to actually do them, it's all outsourced.
Anyone can do conveyancing, only licensed practitioners can charge for it. The Law society does say this, but they wrap it up in weasel words to make it seem that you need a licence to do conveyancing on their website.
Sound like you could do all this through online conveyancing providing the deeds etc are 100% not contested and no other financial interests are on the property
£850 sounds really steep for a simple cash purchase with no sale . Are you looking at £850 profit costs or £850 Profit costs + disbursements + vat .
Searches are essential otherwise you hand over you cash and get nothing or get a house with a loan secured against it that you then have to pay or a motorway goes through the back garden or your new homes extension gets torn down for lack of planning permission.
using a solicitor may not stop these issues but will give you someone to sue.
You also pay a large amount for them to sit around, avoid your calls, ignore your emails, drink tea and right at the last minute rescue the sale by doing something they were paid to do 2 months earlier but failed to as they were focusing on the items earlier in the list.
A well informed judgement on the inner workings of a Solicitors working schedule
£850.00 is quite expensive TBH
If the property has recently been mortgaged it is very unlikely the searches will turn up anything untoward. Mortgage companies require a search to make sure of things like the council haven't planned to build a bypass through your back garden, basically anything that would affect their risk. They are not mandatory for people buying without a mortgage. Lucky you btw.
It's £850 all in with VAT. Just seems odd it's not cheaper than a complicated mortgage purchase. I'll ring them up and tell them the views of my expert panel here. Ta. Lucky yes - Copeland borough, west Cumbria, one of the most affordable places to live in GB apparently (with views of the Lakes and Galloway.....)
Think we had Your Conveyancers when we remortgaged. Substantially less than £850, and we had some extras to pay for as well.