We know, from personal experience, that moving house can be one of the most stressful and exciting events in life: it’s something that most of us have been through ourselves. We work hard to make the process as stress-free as possible for you.
Before talking about our prices, we thought you might like to understand in a little more detail what is typically involved and how long it might take.
This is what we will do for you
- Review the contract pack received from your Seller and advise you of any obvious issues before other costs (including search fees) are incurred.
- Obtain searches.
- Review the searches and the contract pack in detail and investigate where appropriate asking further questions of the Seller’s solicitors.
- This may involve looking into issues such as whether planning consents have been obtained, whether obligations binding the house have been complied with and whether there have been any disputes.
- Obtain and review your mortgage offer. We will advise you about it and ensure that the house meets the requirements of your Lender.
- We will prepare you a report on the investigations above and try to answer any questions that you have.
- Once you are happy to proceed we will arrange for you to sign all the necessary documents including the contract, mortgage deed, transfer deed and stamp duty land tax return.
- We will then exchange contracts, making the purchase binding on you and your Seller and the completion date will be agreed.
- You will need to pay your deposit at this stage. “Completion” is when you actually buy your new home.
- We will then prepare for completion:
- Preparing a completion statement showing the payments to be made on your behalf and the amount required from you.
- We will also undertake final searches to make sure that the title to the house has not changed since details were provided at the outset and also to protect your position until your title to the house is registered. We will also provide a certificate to your mortgage lender confirming that we are satisfied with the title to your new home and requesting the mortgage funds in readiness for completion.
- On the day you buy your new home we will pay the agreed price to your Seller’s solicitors and ensure that they supply us with all the necessary paperwork to properly conclude your purchase. We will keep you informed and let you know when you can collect the keys to your new home and move in.
- After completion, we will pay the Stamp Duty Land Tax on your behalf and apply to the Land Registry to register you as the owner of the house and to register any mortgage against the house. Once registration is complete we will let you have an up to date copy of the register for your records.
How long will all that take?
It varies: no two house purchases are the same. For example, there may be several houses in a “chain” which may complicate things.
As a rough guide, it should take about 10-12 weeks. This will always be dependent on all parties in the chain moving through the process without any issues. At the current time, the registration of the purchase at the Land Registry is likely to take at least three months to complete due to backlogs of work at the Land Registry, and this could be substantially longer for unusual or complex transactions. However, this does not affect your ownership of the house and happens after completion has taken place.
There are things you can do to help us help you:
- Return all papers promptly
- Pay any monies on account promptly
- Ensure that you instruct a surveyor
- Make any mortgage application as soon as possible
- Ensure that your mortgage lender is aware at the outset if any part of the funds you are providing for the purchase are coming from a third party (such as a gift from a parent) otherwise delays are likely at a later stage.
How much will it cost?
Our prices cover the work we will do for you to complete the purchase of your new home.
The price example below is for buying a house at £240,000.
If you are buying for more or less, legal fees will differ and we will be happy to give you an accurate tailored estimate. This will be between £1,850 and £3,785 plus VAT at 20% in each case and based on the hourly rate of the fee earner (David Stapleton £295 or Caroline Pearson £400 both plus VAT at 20%). The tailored estimate will take into account such factors as:
- The value of the property you are buying
- The location of the property
- Whether or not the property is tenanted when you purchase
- Buying a new-build plot from a developer
- The title to the property is not registered at the Land Registry yet
- Taking a mortgage with a non-high street lender, using bridging finance or having multiple mortgages
- Issues with the title such as lack of right of way or breach of covenants
- Transactions involving a high-risk jurisdiction
- Involvement of a trust, estate, deputyship or power of attorney
- Purchase by a company
- Other complex or unusual ownership structures.
It is assumed in the example price that none of these complicating factors are present.
We pride ourselves on the fact that if you ask us to work for you, a member of our team, who is one of our qualified solicitors or legal executives will hold your hand throughout the process.
All our team are experienced in helping people like you move house and will be able to guide you through the process step by step and answer any queries you may have. You can click here to meet members of our conveyancing team.
The prices below presume that the house you are buying is comprised of a single freehold registered title with access from a public highway. This is the case for the majority of houses, but in the minority of houses where this is not the case, more work will be needed and we will need to increase our prices.
Often we will not know whether any of our assumptions don’t apply until we receive the contract pack from the Seller’s solicitors. We do check these points as soon as we have the contract pack and would then reassess the position with you before doing anything else.
| Title | Estimated cost | VAT @ 20% | Total cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legal fee | £1,600 | £320 | £1,920 |
| Electronic Money Transfer * | £35 | £7 | £42 |
* There is usually just one being the charge for sending the purchase price to the Seller’s solicitors.
Other third party costs
In addition to the fees you will pay us, you will need to pay fees and charges to others which we will make on your behalf. These are pretty standard payments required for any house purchase and should be broadly the same whichever law firm you choose to instruct. These are often referred to as ‘disbursements’.
| Fee | Estimated cost | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Search fees | £400 including VAT | This is an approximate figure based on doing a local search, drainage search, coal mining search, environmental search and a chancel search. The figure will vary depending on where your house is located. Local search fees vary greatly and not all searches are always required. In particular, a coal mining search is only required if the house is in a former mining area. In some areas, additional searches are required – for example in Cornwall a tin mining search would be required. |
| HM Land Registry fee | £150 (based on the house purchase price) | HM Land Registry fees are calculated on a sliding scale depending on the price of the house. There is no VAT payable on this fee. The Land Registry fee will be higher if the title to your house is not registered as an application for first registration will be required. The Land Registry have an online calculator which can be accessed here. |
| Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) | £0 (based on the house purchase price) | This is assuming that you don’t own any other property, that higher rate tax is not payable (because you already own another property or are buying in a company name), that no reliefs are available to you, that you are a UK resident, and that this is the purchase of a single property. The SDLT payable is calculated on the exact price of the house. The HMRC have an online calculator which can be accessed here. |
Finally sometimes if a problem is identified with a house it may be possible to deal with this by getting insurance which involves paying a one-off premium. In such cases, you may also incur an insurance premium (the price varies depending on the value of the house and the nature of the problem). We may have to charge more for arranging a policy like this and there will also be a premium. If the problem is the Seller’s fault we may be able to negotiate that they pay for the policy.
Total Price
The estimated total for the purchase of a house based on the above information would be £2,470. This price includes all VAT and payments made to third parties.
VAT – Please note that the addition of VAT to our charges is governed by very complex statutory provisions and extra-statutory guidance. Read more here.
What Happens Next?
We would love to work with you and help you buy your new home.
If you would like a personalised quote, please contact a member of our team directly or complete the contact form and a member of our team will be in touch.