Solicitors' costs

[bitzermaloney]

Mid negotiation on a house, and have two quotes from solicitors which differ wildly - one is £750 plus fees, the other £1200 plus fees.

The cheaper one is a small firm, recommended to us by friends who used it for wills. The more expensive one is a much larger company, recommended by another friend who is a solicitor himself (though not with them).

How do these quotes sound to you? We are in Kent.

[comtessa]

The latter sounds very expensive. I'm in Nottingham (so maybe slightly cheaper) and we're paying around £800 inc, which my dad (who lives in Essex) saw as the top end of what we should be paying.
I would always go with a personal recommendation - has your solicitor friend used the bigger firm himself, or does he just know of it through work?

[BoBoo]

We're in SE London and I think the highest quote I got was around £700 - all the rest were around £400. I got a lot of them online though, I don't know if that makes a difference. The £700 was someone really local and have online system whereby you can track progress and one of the £400 had 100% recommendation rating online. Maybe do a bit more fishing around.

[bitzermaloney]

Thanks comtessa. My solicitor friend knows them by reputation more than anything else I think.

[bitzermaloney]

Thanks BoBoo - have you finished the process yet and were they any good? We are NE Kent/SE London border so any recommendations appreciated!

[BoBoo]

No. My husband has just come round to thinking that we could manage the work the needs doing on a house we both love, but I've just heard someone's put in an offer higher than we can afford :(

I think the one with good recommendations (albeit not personal ones) was via a link on the Cheltenham & Gloucester website.

[Jackstini]

Ours are approx 700 incl fees so would say certainly the second sounds expensive