Some REALLY stupid questions about selling a house.....

[pucca]

I am going to sound incredibly stupid now, but i haven't got a clue about seeling a property as have never done it before.

Dh & i have bought our first house and we have been here a year but since having ds it just isn't big enough (2 bed terrace) so we are looking into a shared ownership house as we cannot afford a 3 bed in our area for our budget.

Soooo my questions are....

Estate agents - roughly how much to sell your house? and do you pay once your house is sold? i.e out of any profit made? (we stand to gain about 10k)

Our mortgage is portable...what exactly does this mean? will we still have to pay any penalty (we are tied to fix rate for 3 yrs) if we stay with them?

Solicitors fees...Can this be paid out of profits of the house? including any fees on house we buy?

Are shared ownership properties more difficult to get a mortgage for?

Thanks very much if you can help me on these queries i am very dim when it comes to house selling/buying.

Estate agent: most charge a set 1-1.5% of the selling price, payable upon exchange, not completion!! but a few offer a fixed number of services for a fixed fee in advance (may or may not depend on whether house sells).

Verify with your lender whether you can transfer the mortgage, w/out penalty.

Soliciter will usually demand some payment up front, some to be paid later.

Dont' know about shared ownership, would imagine it's trickier. You must just ask the lender(s).

Estate agents - roughly how much to sell your house? and do you pay once your house is sold? i.e out of any profit made? (we stand to gain about 10k) - you agree a fee with estate agent before you sign the contract with them. Usually between 1 and 2 and half % of sale value. You pay when you complete contracts - so the day you move normally. You can pay for it with cash or from profits/mortgage. Your solicitor will sort it out for you...

Our mortgage is portable...what exactly does this mean? will we still have to pay any penalty (we are tied to fix rate for 3 yrs) if we stay with them? Depends on your mortgage. You will have to ask the bank/building society about this one!

Solicitors fees...Can this be paid out of profits of the house? including any fees on house we buy? It can be paid with profit/mortgage or cash. Usually the solicitor sorts it out on day of completion. I have never had a separate bill - they just normaly send a statement of where all your money has gone!

Are shared ownership properties more difficult to get a mortgage for? No idea.

I think it's 1-1.5%.. what you do is get 4 agents around and ask them what they charge, what they think house is worth, and why you should choose them over the others.

BTW

You can haggle with the estate agents a bit with regards to % you pay. Also get quote form a few solicitors as they do vary in price a bit.

Also don't forget to factor in stamp duty.

Thanks guy, what is stamp duty?, feeling stressed already just thinking about moving!

Estate agents - roughly how much to sell your house? and do you pay once your house is sold? i.e out of any profit made? (we stand to gain about 10k) Like others have said usually between 1.5 & 2.5% which is payable on completion and this is usually out of profits direct from solicitor

Our mortgage is portable...what exactly does this mean? will we still have to pay any penalty (we are tied to fix rate for 3 yrs) if we stay with them? You might not have to pay a penalty if you port it by a certain period your solicitor or mortgage advisor should advise you

Solicitors fees...Can this be paid out of profits of the house? including any fees on house we buy?
Yes the fees can be paid out of profit and quite often search fees are required in advance (should be no more than £200 I wouldn't have thought

Are shared ownership properties more difficult to get a mortgage for? Sorry dn't know on this one!

The tax you pay the treasury when you buy a house

YOu need to pay stamp duty on any property over £120000 (I think) 1% up to £250k the 3% over that
also you would have to pay Land registry fees which is £150 under £200k and £220 over £200k

Don't know about shared ownership - maybe look at www.johncharcol.co.uk. I used them last time I bought in the UK.

Stamp duty is a tax due on any property priced 125K (I think) upwards. Google "stamp duty" and you'll get the info.

Oh i don't think stamp duty will apply to us then thankfully as the house we are looking at (shared ownership) is only 60k mortgage.

Mortgages on shared ownerships are different but no more difficult to comprehend than regular mortgages - however whoever you share the ownership with will be able to help you find one.

I'd also approach the shared owner to ask them who they use for solicitors etc, they may well have a cheapo contra deal going on.

In terms of estate agents you are in a sellers market, they simply isn't enough cheap property in lots of areas, so nail them to the wall - if the guy isn't sobbing, you haven't got a good deal out of him. Alternatively don't do estate agents and sell privately - not as hard as you'd think!

pucca I think you still have to pay the full amount of stamp duty even if the mortgage is under the threshold but the property is over the £120/125k

The other owner on the house is a housing association.

Our mortgage atm we are getting stung by though as it is 6.29%, we have been advised that a local estate agents can get us a better deal (dh had adverse credit) but we will have to pay a 5% penalty for moving mortgages....i aint got a clue about any of it really!

Now wishing we had stuck with renting

If it's portable, you usually just transfer the product to the new mortgage, without penalty.
You will need to pay new mortgage set up fees such as a valuation.
The ERC (early repayment charge) is when you pay a lump sum off, or redeem early. You normally wouldn't pay one to take a new mort with the same lender, if you port(move it to new house).
When does your scheme end? You may be as well to take a new mort, and port the scheme until the penalties end, and then transfer to a new product. The bank/Build Soc you are with should always be able to offer you a new scheme when the old one finished. I'm on about my 4th on the same mort/prop.
This may be cheaper than paying a 5% penalty.

The other thing, is that atm we have a mortgage of 73.500k but will be wanting a mortgage of 60 k, so obviously less, have looked through all mortgage paperwork and cannot really find anything but i am thinking it may be a prob if downsizing the mortgage.

you may have to pay a penalty on the difference amount - poss 5% ish. look through your orig mort offer. If not phone and ask them.

Pucca - another note about portability

If you sold your property and moved into rented directly after, you would pay an early repayment fee. On my particular mortgage product, I would get this fee back if I was to buy another house and use this same product within six months.

I hope I haven't confused the issue.

I am lucky to have a 5 year at 4.85% - This ends in December and I am sure it will be a shock to the system

Pucca - You would effectively be redeeming part of your mtg and this normally means that you would be paying an early repayment fee and I would also assume that you would not be able to have your 3 yr fixed rate any more.

You do need to talk to your mortgage adviser and you may want to see what other fixed rates are on the market. I think money supermarket . com has an unbiased site on the mtg rates on offer

HTH

am moving too and just moved my mortgage to next house as its fixed - good rate and penalty of few grand if i changed - and by moving mortgage i had no penalties/charges.
Upfront to sell you will have to initially pay out:
deposit to solicitor - 2-3 hundred
and same again for basic survey if buying

Just the thread I need! We are selling, been here for 29 years, our first home, but after having my trio we need more room! Never been thru the system so finding it all scary! Had our first viewing today, sprung upon me, with 30 mins to spare as the couple were down from London, a warning to keep on top of the housework!!

Thanks again everyone for all the replies, we are unable to go for the shared ownership house with our mortgage co atm, so looks like a penalty will have to be paid, but we stand to make at least 15K on our house at mo so not too concerned, we are having a estate agent come tomorrow night to give us a guide price on ours.

pucca - get a few quotes - they are pushy as they know you will be having other agents round - we went with the dearest quote and got over the asking price.
triplets - its a pain having to keep the house tidy! our agent went for the 'get them all in on a saturday' scheme - means less of the dribs and drabs viewers so less stress of keeping house tidy all week and it generates more interest in the house when people viewing it see that other people are also viewing it so they are forced to make a decision quickly if they are interested in the house. Good luck