First time buyer help

[Jellyboobs]

Scrambled head alert!

We are looking for our first home, have a healthy deposit and are ready to go, depending on the right house. We currently rent in the area we're looking in, and DD will be at school here.
I am just EXTREMELY confused, and worried, about all the other stuff, and seemingly vast amounts of money that is involved with buying a house. Can anyone advise?

1.Estate agent: I don't think they charge anything.
2.Mortgage advisor: up to £800
3.Mortgage lender: arrangement fees, about £1500 valuation fees about £300

1. Survey costs: up to £800
2. Solicitor/conveyancer: horrible rumours of £100's per hour

6.Removals etc: more feeeeesssssss

It seems like we'd have to pay out about £5 - £7 grand on top of the actual cost of the house just to get the thing bought, plus things like arrangement fees and surveys are non refundable if the sale falls through.

Am I right? Is there a better (cheaper) way of doing it?

Also, has anyone used Which? mortgage advisors?

A million thanks!

Didn't think that you had to pay so much for mortgage valuation and you don't need to use a mortgage advisor.

Thank you Sleepy,
did you not use a mortgage advisor? Just went straight to the lender?

We didn't use a mortgage advisor so no fees there. You can also get a mortgage with no or low fees but with fees can be cheaper overall, you need to do the sums. You can often add mortgage fees onto the mortgage but of course than pay interest on that amount over the mortgage term.

You can use a mortgage broker. Mine charges 200 quid to advise me on a mortgage and then does the application for me. They then get a fee from the lender as well.
Estate agents don't charge the buyer.
Conveyancer will charge a flat fee for the work they do (mine is 600 quid) plus what they call 'dispursements' which are third party charges like searches which you have to pay for. Around 1.5k total.
Plus you haven't mentioned stamp duty which you pay depending on how much you pay for a property. There are calculators online.

Oh. Yes and mortgage fees are added to the loan, tho you have to pay a couple of hundred for them to do a valuation on the property (this is separate to if you do a full buildings survey.

So basically

1. estate agents don't charge buyer
2. mortgage broker/advisor couple of hundred
3. mortgage fees, couple of K but added to loan. Except their valuation which is couple of hundred upfront.
4. buildings survey (some people don't do it but I recommend you do) 500-1000
5. stamp duty - few k, depends on property value though
6. conveyancer 1.5k-2k all in

And then removals yes.

If you want any contacts pm me :)

Thanks everyone!
I'm afraid of getting caught out with something I didn't consider, like a big cost, or just generally not knowing what I'm talking about, so any and all info is very helpful

She we bought 5 years ago we had a healthy deposit:borrow ration of 60:40 and interest rates were relatively good so I found the best deal online. It was actually with first direct. Now that we are looking to move again and our situation is more complex (dh a self employed partner in a business) we will have to use a specialist advisor probably.

If you go direct to a lender you can forget the adviser fee and the valuation is a basic survey, so you may not need both. Removal fees will vary according to amount if stuff, distance and where in the country.

Usually stamp duty is much bigger than anything. One daughter paid £10k and the other £30k in stamp duty. Luckily it has come down for the cheaper properties though and very low properties have none. England and Scotland differ.

1.Estate agent: nothing if your not selling a house.
2.Mortgage advisor: either don't use one, or find one that is free to you. Ours gets their fees from the lender, we don't pay him a penny. Ask the estate agents you are buying through to recommend someone.
3.Mortgage lender: depends on the mortgage. Some have product fees up to £1000. Ours was £150 application fee and search was free.

1. Survey costs: depends if you have a full survey. Searches are part of solicitors fees.
2. Solicitor/conveyancer: our solicitor was £1000 for a straight forward purchase as a first time buyer including searches etc. Not including any stamp duty.

6.Removals etc: up to £1000. Or don't use one, hire a van and do it yourself.

Thank you everyone, this is all making me feel much more like I can go in without making a twonk of myself. 30k in stamp duty is HUGE!!!
I'd be grinding my teeth over that. Luckily now the rules have changed we'd only be looking at paying it on around 10 grand, which is much less! Friends of ours bought weeks before the changes and were properly stung.

We moved end 2014, I've just looked at completion statement, with stamp duty we paid ~£2400 plus ~£150-200 valuation fee. That includes stamp duty. Good luck!