Conveyancing fees

On selling our house and buying another, we managed to get what seemed an excellent quote from a local firm. The quote was a basic one assuming no problems and no fee if the sale falls through.

The downside has been they do very little, the searches got sent over to us with a question from the solicitor “do you have any questions”. We needed a couple of indemnity policies, they charged us £80 for the policy and a further £150 for arranging it (Each).

They’ve found so many “hidden” extras to charge for and the amount of forms we’ve had to send back for errors is alarming, we also found the junior paralegal does 90% of the emails
 
mattyg said:
I know a few conveyancer's. Beware of the ones that appear to be fast. Some dont really do proper searches but rather buy insurance incase anything crops up in the future.
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Honestly with practices like this you could probably make a better job of it by doing the conveyancing yourself.
 
DB_SamX said:
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.
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that was my secound one o'niells brought the place over 3 years ago got an email with docs they should have sent only last month the other online one was GD property solicitors so far they been the best but as wanting to sell get a boat, work and build my computer, from any where any recomendations would be great but please no where near op's quote 2k is nuts
 
bumping thread : Conveyancing related question

has anyone used a conveyancers bank account for temporary holding of funds ?
I don't really want money sitting in my standard Lloyds current account - which my bank card, if lost, would access;
having spoken to lloyds, lady suggested opening a second current account, however, later found that would involve rigmarole of specifying monthly income/salary that would be stored in account etc etc....
 
jpaul said:
bumping thread : Conveyancing related question

has anyone used a conveyancers bank account for temporary holding of funds ?
I don't really want money sitting in my standard Lloyds current account - which my bank card, if lost, would access;
having spoken to lloyds, lady suggested opening a second current account, however, later found that would involve rigmarole of specifying monthly income/salary that would be stored in account etc etc....
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Just open a savings account somewhere, it will be instant and you'll earn some interest while you wait. Most if not all have MFA and no card so the money would have to be transferred back into a CA after authenticating with MFA and then you bank card compromised to obtain the funds.

Chase, Atom, Marcus are all accounts I've had fairly recently and would cover for this although I've no idea if they still offer the best rates.
 
Peerzy said:
Just open a savings account somewhere, it will be instant and you'll earn some interest while you wait. Most if not all have MFA and no card so the money would have to be transferred back into a CA after authenticating with MFA and then you bank card compromised to obtain the funds.
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yes you are right could use an existing saving account - hadn't considered that - as you say can only transfer via CA to move the money, though.

I have an existing lloyds intnl sterling account, without card I could use as temporary home place - but had wondered if it's Isle of Man address might become an issue for Chaps transfer on D-day.
 
I paid £600 for my home purchase with an online conveyancer (FTB with no chain buying from executors of an estate)
I knew what I was getting into and the area etc so didn't need much from them other than literally drawing up the contracts and arranging the purchase
Took nearly 5 and a half months

If I had a chain...in hindsight would definitely pay the extra for a brick-and-mortar solicitor rather than online conveyancing-only services
(but that being said, saved £1000 by going online)
 
tamzzy said:
I paid £600 for my home purchase with an online conveyancer (FTB with no chain buying from executors of an estate)
I knew what I was getting into and the area etc so didn't need much from them other than literally drawing up the contracts and arranging the purchase
Took nearly 5 and a half months
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searches were on top of the £600+ ? as you imply you had luxury of time too, from executors.

I'm already living in area I'm moving in so no environmental issues ... but land search within the boundaries to check for any sewers, rights of pay, parish dues .. still needed I think.
 
After recently completing a purchase in a longish chain (4 properties, bottom was FTB buying a property with a management company) it doesn't matter if you have the best solicitors....you'll all go at the pace of the worst (which is why it took me almost 6 months from agreeing a sale to completing).

I can't see my local solicitor has offered anything above and beyond anyone else for the premium.
 
jpaul said:
searches were on top of the £600+ ? as you imply you had luxury of time too, from executors.
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just had a look at the old emails...this was how much i paid - total £767 all in
(i thought it was £600...but this was without the LR registration :cry:)

Code: 
Tax
Stamp Duty Land Tax 0.00

Disbursements
Land Registry Registration Fee 150.00

Fees
Our Fees 549.60
LISA FEE 60.00

Searches
Land Registry Priority Search 6.00
Bankruptcy Search 2.00

Total
767.60
 
next conundrum - trying to understand ~£300 Local Authority, Drainage and Environmental Searches

looks like https://www.eastcambs.gov.uk/landcharges/local-land-charges-service

What is a Search? ​

A search is a major part of the conveyancing process and consists of a search of the Local Land Charges Register (LLC1) and answering of the enquiries on form CON29R.
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so CON29R is £150 https://www.eastcambs.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Search Fees from 1 April 2023_0.pdf
and local land search £15

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solicitor portal Solicitors don't seem to have an online portal for securely depositing electronic copies of documentation - house funding etc.

They include a cover letter of how not to be scammed by man in middle attack to put your deposit in a 3rd party bank account,
but expect you to deliver such docs as pdf email attachments (for those nasty google folks to see)
 
jpaul said:
next conundrum - trying to understand ~£300 Local Authority, Drainage and Environmental Searches

looks like https://www.eastcambs.gov.uk/landcharges/local-land-charges-service


so CON29R is £150 https://www.eastcambs.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Search Fees from 1 April 2023_0.pdf
and local land search £15

------------

solicitor portal Solicitors don't seem to have an online portal for securely depositing electronic copies of documentation - house funding etc.

They include a cover letter of how not to be scammed by man in middle attack to put your deposit in a 3rd party bank account,
but expect you to deliver such docs as pdf email attachments (for those nasty google folks to see)
Click to expand...
To be honest most portals are rough as hell anyway. And the extra cost for the con29r is probs their fees. I refused my solicitors offer of indemnity and did it myself to save 200 quid. Don't know if you can do the same with searches but well done if you can!
 
dlockers said:
To be honest most portals are rough as hell anyway. And the extra cost for the con29r is probs their fees. I refused my solicitors offer of indemnity and did it myself to save 200 quid. Don't know if you can do the same with searches but well done if you can!
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speaking to their IT guy turns out they use mimecast however their trial message to me didn't prompt me to logon to their portal to see it,
rather seemed to have the original mail contents in clear,
So rather I will just use an app where you can encrypt a gz file and ring them up with the password.

When you said indemnify - you mean you requested the local&environmental search yourself and certified you could read the report, that said nothing poisonous here ?
 
jpaul said:
speaking to their IT guy turns out they use mimecast however their trial message to me didn't prompt me to logon to their portal to see it,
rather seemed to have the original mail contents in clear,
So rather I will just use an app where you can encrypt a gz file and ring them up with the password.

When you said indemnify - you mean you requested the local&environmental search yourself and certified you could read the report, that said nothing poisonous here ?
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Sorry I conflated topics there - the indemnity insurance was due to glazing or w/e.
 
signed up on digdat to find out cost of drainage & water distribution search costs https://utilities.digdat.co.uk/Account/Register.aspx
about £60 total - you select on a map the area you want a report on.

Need the bill the solicitor for the hour+ I wasted identifying google drive as a reasonable means to share confidential data, the axcrypt self decrypting binary utility I used before now being dead;
they hadn't realised how to send mimecast invitations as we discussed during impromptu IT support.
 
Do (conveyancing) solicitors not bother to send regular progress updates -
after 2 weeks, I'm guessing I need to send a sarcastic email requesting this - have they got search results back, what level of contact with sellers solicitor, are they still alive.
 
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