Buying a first home

[SomeDayPerhaps]

I'm trying to buy a little house later this year, it won't be much but all I need. Value of around £115k, which is just about do-able where I'm looking. Nowhere near London thank fuck for that.

My question is regarding the fees and costs. Survey this, search that. It's all confusing and to be honest very intimidating. At what point do I actually begin to part with money? Will the estate agent just do it all for me? I've estimated around £2k for all fees including my own independent survey. Is that about right?!

It feels like I'll never get there 😔

My MB has said we will meet as soon as any offer is accepted and I know he'll tell me all this but I do find most people on here very helpful and reassuring...

We paid around £1500 (? I think! It was only a few months ago but I can’t remember exactly) for solicitor (they are the ones that will do all the searches and draw up contracts); around £300 for mortgage advisor; and £300 ish for survey (we had a homebuyer report - sort of middle ground between a drive-by “yes there is indeed a house there” and a full structural survey). We had to pay for the survey up front but everything else was towards the end of the process.

I’m in NW England, I assume pretty much everywhere else is more expensive!

Our mortgage advisor was great with telling us what to do and when throughout the process, not just with the actual mortgage related stuff.

Good luck!

We’re looking to buy our first house soon as well. We’ve budgeted money for:
Solicitor between £1190 - £1965
Mortgage advisor £400-500
Survey £495
Stamp duty (hopefully) £2000

As far as we’re aware, offer is made and then you engage a solicitor who’ll take it from there.

We’ve just bought our first house.

Solicitor fees were £1400, we didn’t have a survey.

Went through a broker - £500

Valuation fee - £200

Always have a survey. Even if it’s new. Some builders are crap.

Mortgage advisor £400-500
Went through a broker - £500

Why are you paying for a mortgage adviser?

When we used one he was free to us (got paid by the bank that we went with)

Got us an amazing deal...

Gosh, and Patrick too...

Upfront...£150 to solicitor (total will be approx £1200). Mortgage advisor was free (paid by lenders) but is whole market. £200 mortgage valuation fee. £550 survey (can be paid with valuation or my preference is to use an independent). Morgage fees you can add to your mortgage (most mortgages allow you to overpay, so you could hold money in reserve then overpay this once the mortgage starts). Moving costs also need to be factored in.

Appreciate your help so far xx

About £1500 for the solicitors who sorted all searches etc (£200 up front)
The survey was £400 ish I think, organised through purple bricks.
No stamp duty for first time buyers any more, it changed during the buying process so we were lucky and had it refunded.

1500 for our sols but that was sale and purchase. Purchase alone was about half of that. Stamp duty (10 effing grand in our case), a grand on a removal firm and for our sale, 3500 estate agent commission.

Have paid 300 up front to sols for searches

I would say allow about £4000 should cover most of expenses

No moving costs for me. I'm lodging so no furniture, it's just me and a bunch of clothes. I don't need to spend a fortune buying sofas, beds etc either as I will have donations x

@Nyon you don't have to pay stamp duty as a first time buyer unless your house is over 300k I think it is?

OP I would budget around 4k to be on the safe side

Should be £0 stamp duty
Some mortgages are fee-free, if there is a fee then you can often add it to the amount borrowed- sometimes it is preferable to do this from an interest point of view.
Searches are approx £150 but it completely depends on the area - extra flood reports, mining reports etc etc.
The the charge of the Solicitor themselves - for purchase only, it varies but we recently paid £500 + VAT but always worth phoning round a few for prices.

Try using this estimate calculator. It will work out the stamp duty and other costs involved in buying a property. This site also has lots of information on what is involved in buying a property answering many questions for a 1st time buyer and also has some great articles in the blog.....The article on Leasehold properties is especially important.

www.gspropertylawyers.co.uk/buying-quote

Are you using a mortgage? A circumstance which you can find yourself in is a bank refusing to lend after a survey... many banks also like to use their own surveyors. Which means that youd either need to find another house OR another bank to do the mortgage who will probably want to have thier own surveyor sign off on it.... both scenarios mean that youd have to pay again for a survey.
This happened to us so I'm just warning you to have spare cash for situations like this!! Some houses can have structural problems that you cant immediately see yourself. So it's worth have wriggle room with money.

There won’t be stamp duty on this level of purchase. Fees are disproportionately high for cheaper properties because the amount of work is similar. You could pay £1m and have similar costs, except then you would pay stamp duty.

@WNWife unfortunately we’re in Surrey so our house will be over 300k. Could do without having to pay it with everything else we need!

@Nyon oh how annoying!! X

I've been advised £2000 ish in the East Midlands.