Conveyancing is the 'legal bit' of buying or selling a property

Here are a few examples of how our costs are made up...

Many properties will fall into this bracket. This was a Freehold 1950s build property without any Resident Management Committee. No major queries or issues, so the property only required the minimal searches and reports and the basic conveyancing fee.

This property was a New-build. New Build properties require additional registrations which slightly increase both the Disbursements, (through additional registrations), and also the Solicitors Fee will rise as there is much more work for them to do.

With a flat purchase there can often be a management company for the full building. This will result in additional Disbursements through extra searches and an additional fee to be paid to the management company

This case was a 3 Bedroom freehold property, but in this instance, there was also a Resident Committee in place which required a Notice Fee to be paid and additional Land Registry fee .

AN INSIGHT INTO THE Costs of conveyancing...

'Fixed Fee', 'No Completion, No Fee' and 'Disbursements' - what do they mean for you?

So, as a first time buyer you may find it frustrating trying to find an exact cost for your conveyancing as you are scanning the internet looking for quotes.

This is because the final cost works out slightly different for every property purchase, so most providers will want your details and information before they will give you an indication of cost - we will give you all the information for how your Solicitor gets to the final bill.. .

The first important thing to understand is 'Disbursements' and how they affect cost.. A lot of online comparison sites will not mention the Disbursements. That is often why their quotes seem ridiculously low compared to a High Street Solicitor and because it is impossible to know exactly what the Disbursement cost will be at the time of applying.

A Disbursement by its definition is...

' a payment, especially one made by a solicitor to a third party and then claimed back from the client. '

Yes, that seems very vague to most of us!! But try to think of it as 'the things that the Solicitor needs to pay out to other people to be able to do their work for you' and to keep the process moving without the delays of asking for money for each separate thing. For example, the Property Searches, & Administration and filing Fees along the way. They cost quite a lot, but are not part of the Solicitors actual fee, so the Solicitor will normally ask you to pay money in advance for these things, even if they are operating as 'No Completion, No Fee'.

So What is 'No Completion No Fee' and 'Fixed Fees'? And what about the money you have already paid?

We operate with a Fixed Fee of £650 & VAT for properties under the value of £650,000. This, for example, would be a freehold property. If the same property was leasehold or a new-build the Fixed Fee would be £800.& VAT

We then operate with a Fixed Fee of £800 & VAT for properties with a value over £650,000. As with above, if the property is new-build or leasehold, or requires a major additional amount of work from the Solicitor to complete, then the Fixed Fee could be a little more. In any case, the Fee will be reported within our quote to you and will not change.

We work with a 'No Completion No Fee' strategy, - If your purchase does not go through for any reason, you would not want to have to then pay a Solicitors bill for work that didn't need completing! But it would of course only be fair that you paid the Solicitor for the Disbursements they have already paid on your behalf. The funds that you paid as a payment of account to start would usually cover most of the disbursements.

We formally quote all of our work only once we have full details of the property, but we will normally be able to give an indication of cost with some basic information provided to us.

In a situation where the property needs 'additional searches' that were not apparent at the time of us quoting, the Solicitor would request additional funds to be placed on your client account for this and would make you fully aware if the additional work will increase the Fixed Fee,which is payable at completion.

The Fixed Fee is added to any Disbursements to create the final Invoice. Any money that you have paid onto your Client Account for Disbursements will be reduced from your final invoice.