to think £1,000 conveyancing fees for property sale is a bit pricey?

[crazycatlady]

Boring topic I know, but looking for a range of responses.

We've just been quoted £1,000 for conveyancing fees for selling our property. We are in London and the sale price is £420k. We are not buying a property so no conveyancing work to do on that front.

It is the same solicitor we used for our previous sale (and purchase) in 2007. Can't remember what we paid but I seem to remember it was less than £1k for the whole lot.

Does this sound expensive or AIBU?

[hayleysd]

We paid around £850 to purchase our first property 2 years ago and that was £133k in yorkshire

[Thetallestsunflower]

Well we sold a house for 51k and the fees were around £500 (not including the estate agent fees which were over 1k) they were really good though in what was a difficult process.

[Soupqueen]

I wouldn't get one in Scotland (as mentioned by a previous poster), we have a totally different conveyancing system up here!

[nocake]

Selling a house should be far cheaper in legal fees that buying so £1,000 is not only unreasonable. It's outrageous. Can I recommend Simpson Millar. They do all the communication with you via email, phone and post which is much more convenient than having to go into their office.

[mypersonalfavourite]

We've just sold for the same amount in London and paid £1k each for sale and purchase. Lovely!

[sittinginthesun]

Stick with your old firm. You trust them, and know the service you are getting. There are plenty of firms doing stupidly cheap work, and you simply can't guarantee what you will get.

[crazycatlady]

Yep we're going to stick. We need to exchange and complete within a fairly short time frame and they were brilliant last time at getting everything done super quick. It's the same individual within the firm that we used last time too so I feel I know what to expect from her.

Also want to be able to pop in to the office to sign contracts so we don't have to wait for the post, it's so unreliable in our part of London.

£1k does seem ridiculous for the small amount of work for a property sale, especially when there is no chain in either direction but what price peace of mind eh?

They probably made a huge loss on our last deal as it was a complicated nightmare of awfulness!

[sittinginthesun]

That's the way it works - there is almost no profit in conveyancing these days, even on the "easy" transactions. The indemnity premiums have made sure of that. Solicitors work at a loss in most cases.

[hospidium]

£1k is definitely overpriced. Quotes of around £500 - £600 plus VAT and searches is about right. We recently sold our house and used an online conveyancing comparison website that shows all of the solicitors and conveyancers and then lets you pick the one you want.

It's here if anyone wants the link www.theconveyancingnetwork.com/index.cfm/get-a-quote/. Worth taking a look

[Flossyfloof]

When I bought my first house I was advised not to go with the cheapest solicitor. I ignored the advice and he was a complet arse. He is now doing time for murder. Nothing to do with my house purchase, I don't think.
There is nothing to stop you getting quotes from other people; I think the costs vary according to the cost of the property. The price quoted doesn't seem unreasonable to me, but I bet you could get it cheaper.

[Misteranderson]

Just stumbled on this old thread after just buying my house. I worked with a fantastic solicitor who I a cannot recommend highly enough. No legal begal words, just plain speaking. You can tell I'm happy about it because I am actually taking the time to write this - I thought it was goign to be so stressful but it really wasn't.

I paid £529 for their fees and that included all the legal work, mortgage, etc on a £244k property. The search fees were £239 and it was all on a no win no fee sort of thing. If anyone is buying or has a family member asking, send them to Share a Mortgage Conveyancing Services - //www.sharemortgage.com/conveyancing.

I couldn't recommend them highly enough!