Conveyancing fees

ADT

ADT

ADT

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Hi All,

I have accepted an offer on my property and I have also had an offer accepted on a property I would like to purchase. We are now at the stage of instructing solicitors.

I contacted the last solicitor I instructed for the purchase of my current property and I was quoted roughly £1500 for the sale and £1830 for the purchase (just the legal fees).

I wanted to see what else I can get out there so I came across a comparison website on Google. After entering my details I found a couple of law firms that quoted me between £1200 (company 1) and £1300 (company 2) for BOTH the sale and the purchase!

Are these too good to be true or am I missing something?

I looked up both firms and they both have good reviews on Google and Trust Pilot.

It's been a while so wanted to check before I commit!
 
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Only done it once (FTB in 2021) but we paid £2000 odd for the purchase alone. Honestly, I don't think conveyancing is where you want to penny-pinch, there's some horror stories out there and bad ones can royally screw you over. I'd get some in-person recommendations from friends/family and go with them regardless of cost.

Ours were superb, she'd answer the phone when we called and if we had questions at the end of the day we'd see a reply before 9am the next day. Bearing in mind we were FTBs and total numpties, we thought it was £2k very well spent.

EDIT: They were actually based in Fareham and recommended by the agents selling (which were slightly dubious of, but it all worked out). Send me a PM if you want the details, we're in west London and working with them without meeting was not an issue at all.
 
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My last house purchase was, iirc, about £600 of solicitor fees, 11 years ago. It was a couple of hundred cheaper than my previous house where we paid about £800, 5 years earlier.

Can't remember the costs of selling. Have only done that once.
 
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My view would be there are some very bad online conveyancing companies, where you can't get a direct contact to progress your issue, and they are just targeting business volume and not doing a great job. The opposite to this is a local firm with a good reputation and a direct contact to deal with all your issues, i.e. where you can go and visit them if necessary and can't get ignored or fobbed off so easily. That might be worth paying for in terms of less stress.
 
Bought a new build in 2019 and solicitor fees were £2100 (sale and purchase) from a local company that we went and met.

We need to sell and move now so I hope their prices haven't changed too much, but £1200 sounds a bit low.....

Try and find someone local so that if there's paper work to sign you can just go and do it. You don't want to wait on anyone using the postal service!
 
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BUDFORCE said:
Can you list the names of the firms on here so we can have a look?

I work in mortgages and whilst I cannot gaurantee they will be good, I can at least have a look at them/law society and tell you if I have ever heard of them and or would meet our requirements as a lender.
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Thank you all for your responses. Thought I would check first before proceeding with any firm. I still have the option to use the solicitor that I used last time as they have offices local to me.

The 2 firms are Home Legal Direct (homelegaldirect.com) and NBM Solicitors (Nigel Broadhead Mynard Solicitors (www.nbmlaw.co.uk))

Here is what's included in the Home Legal Direct quote:

Your Purchase Conveyancing Fees
Fees£360.00
Mortgage Fee£85.00
VAT£89.00
Total£534.00
Your Purchase Conveyancing disbursements payable to us on instruction
Legal file set up and completion statement preparationIncluded
Anti Money laundering data link posting £26 per person£52.00
Office Copies£6.00
Legal Biometric Identification data link posting £14 per person£28.00
Searches - costs payable to us, depending on which searches are required
Local Authority Search (further searches may be required)£79.00
Your Purchase Conveyancing disbursements payable to your conveyancer/solicitor
Telegraphic Transfer (£35 Plus VAT per TT)£42.00
Land Registry Search£3.00
Bankruptcy Search£5.00
Stamp Duty Land Tax (Single Property)£11,250.00
Land Registry Fee£150.00
The bottom line
Fees and all disbursements together£12,149.00
Fees and disbursements without Stamp Duty Land Tax£899.00




Your Sale Conveyancing Fees
Fees£350.00
VAT£70.00
Total£420.00
Your Sale Conveyancing disbursements payable to us on instruction
Legal file set up and completion statement preparationIncluded
Your Sale Conveyancing disbursements payable to your conveyancer/solicitor
Office Copies£6.00
Telegraphic Transfer (£35 Plus VAT per TT)£42.00
The bottom line
Fees and all disbursements together£468.00
 
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I have seen these ones being used, again, not saying they will be good, but they have the conveyancing certification, 3 certified solicitors and registered on the law society, as they are covered by the SRA they will be pretty well regulated.

The other firm I cannot even find on the law society.............................I would avoid personally.


The only firm I can find close to them is Jefferies and whilst I cannot confirm anything, I was part of a pretty large investigation into a certain community based in North East London (they dont like pork) it may have been that they were money laundering millions of pounds through mortgage transactions, and all the transactions were going through that partilcular solicitor. Of course I may have been wrong as nothing was proven.
 
cheesyboy said:
My last house purchase was, iirc, about £600 of solicitor fees, 11 years ago. It was a couple of hundred cheaper than my previous house where we paid about £800, 5 years earlier.

Can't remember the costs of selling. Have only done that once.
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Similar to what we paid to a local firm when we bought the current house.

Just checked and it was £660 fees, ~£200 searches, £190 land registry, so total just over £1k.

If selling is around the same then £2k total seems realistic.

There's obviously going to be some regional variation, and house value may also have some bearing? (more expensive house = more liability if they screw something up?)
 
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used an online one for my last three houses and a break up but dont go with the one your mortgage company says cost me an arm and a leg 1500 on a 110k house so def shoup around but one i been using is gdlegal.co.uk ask for mo if you can get her was so far been the best
 
Rotty said:
used cheap online ones several times and have always been very good
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I found completely the opposite, for our sale we used a company called Muve and wished we never bothered.
Staff left mid sale and we were never told, semeed no one was picking up their work and we had to phone repeatedly.

Jacksons that we used for our purchase was much better better
Our buyer worked for Knights Plc and they seemed to be really on the ball
 
I also got cheap quotes with online-only solicitors, where it seemed you got access to an online portal to track progress, and send enquiries, but not much 1-1 conversations.

I paid a bit more for a local conveyancer i could walk to, drop and collect documents, etc in person. Besides he called and i appreciated the good service.
 
I went for an online conveyancer and my estate agent called to say the seller was pulling out unless I went with an actual human/grown up. After 5 days of being assigned a "team" and hearing nothing I took their advice :D
 
dlockers said:
I went for an online conveyancer and my estate agent called to say the seller was pulling out unless I went with an actual human/grown up. After 5 days of being assigned a "team" and hearing nothing I took their advice :D
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Bullcrap.

Estate agents are liars.

I knew my estate agents were lying to me but I decided to use them anyway because of the threats they made regarding the 'attractiveness' of me as a purchaser unless I used their solicitor and mortgage broker. Its bullcrap but I had no choice
 
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