So when you buy a house at what point does money need to leave your account?

[TinyDiamond]

We are trying to save to buy first property, all a bit difficult but have figured a way we could potentially do it for next year using the help to buy scheme starting in January. If we managed to save up say, 7k by Jan which would be our 5% to put down, does that need to be paid immediately as soon as we put in an offer and it is accepted? Or is it all paid at the end?

What I am trying to establish is whether we could find a property in Jan with enough for the dep but not enough yet to cover the stamp duty and solicitor fees (which would be approx how much please? I know SD is 1%) and save this amount over the next two months whilst waiting to complete? Is there any way to add these fees to your mortgage amount??

Thanks

I was a FTB earlier this year (in Scotland in case that matters)...I saw house early Dec and had offer accepted few days later. We agreed entry date of late Feb (gave me an extra couple months wages/savings), mortgage money went straight from Bank to Sols on Wed before entry date, I sent my deposit by CHAPS the Thu...Fri pm I got my keys!

You don't pay anything when you put in an offer. The deposit is paid at exchange of contracts and stamp duty you could add to the mortgage or not if you have enough saved. Solicitors are paid on completion and the amount they charge will depend on the value of the house you by.
You could contact a few solicitors for some quotes and breakdowns of their charges.

This may all be different if you're in Scotland though.

No, it's the same in Scotland. You don't pay anything until you complete and exchange.

(House you BUY not by...duh)

Pay deposit & stamp duty on exchange.

You can't add stamp duty to your mortgage anymore.

Really?
No wonder people are struggling to buy!

Right ok thanks so much. Good news about the nothing leaving bank until exchange.....bad news about the stamp duty. So potentially another £1500 we would need to pluck from the air. FFS

Whilst your solicitor's fees won't be paid until completion you will need to pay for disbursements as soon as you instruct them. Usually a few £100's to allow them to pay search fees etc upfront.

My company bought a flat a couple of months ago, we paid the money into the solicitors client funds account about a week before the completion date. We paid a 10% deposit on exchange.

OK thanks pasta will look into this.

We completed 2 months ago and here is an approximation on what we had to and when.
Paid £500 for mortgage product plus £250 for survey (our bank paid for the valuation survey and we paid extra for homebuyers report) at the mortgage application meeting. After appointing solicitor we then had to pay for searches (disembursements) £300 which normally include local authority searches and environment search. Most solicitors expect payment first before service so you should the solicitor funds ready at the beginning. We then transferred deposit and stamp duty to solicitors account 1 week before exchange.

TinyDiamond - I think you need to do some more research before you think about such a huge step. If you are fretting at finding stamp duty cash then I don't think you are really ready. Buying a house and living in a house costs lots and lots of money. Interest rates will go up in the future - have you thought about that? At one point I had to pay 14% interest on my mortgage.

yes answer of course it is a big step....of course I am fretting about all of the down payments. they don't make it easy now you know. We earn a very good wage between us but rents are relatively high where we live and even on a mortgage of up to 6% (the sort of rate we'd likely get if we were to put down 10% and get a 90% mortgage) we will be paying out less on a mortgage payment per month then our rent.

When the new help to buy scheme comes in January 2014 it could give us a chance to get on the ladder 3-4 years sooner than if we were just saving for the 10% rather than the 5% deposit. With the new scheme the government lend you up to 20% so you are able to get a much lower interest rate mortgage.

If we only need 7k for the dep then another 2-3 k on top of this is a considerable amount you see. I am trying to figure out how realistic this is within our time frame. We want to buy as soon as we can as our current rental experience is thoroughly miserable.