Solicitors Fees

[Mercimay]

My first time posting here & just looking for some advice as a FTB.

Buying a property that has no chain and put an offer in using a AIP which was accepted. Our broker has informed us of some delays in getting the application pushed through due to a backlog on their end. The mortgage valuation is not booked in until the end of next month but we are slightly concerned that they will not offer us what was initially agreed upon. Our solicitors require money upfront before beginning work after we have sent off necessary docs IDs etc but I would like to hold off on paying these fees and getting the solicitors to start until the valuation has been done at least.

Is this acceptable or should we just pay the solicitors and hope for the best !?

Any advice would be appreciated

Yes you can do this, but you should tell your seller that it’s delayed to start by four weeks.

As the seller, i would be concerned that you were not a serious buyer if you waited to instruct a solicitor

You can, but make sure the seller knows you're doing this. I'd be wondering what was going on if didn't hear anything for four weeks.

It’s for searches, so you’d be adding time to your transaction by delaying your local authority search which tend to take a while anyway.

Yep pay the solicitor. It’s usually just the cost of searches so they don’t end up out of pocket.

You should pay the solicitor the first fees to show your seller & estate agent that you are serious. Just inform your solicitor that you don’t want them running up too many costs until the valuation has been done.

The monies the solicitor requires from you is probably to pay for the searches. They usually wait until the seller's solicitor sends them the draft contract pack before they actually order the searches, so your monies will sit in their client account for a few weeks anyway. You can always instruct them not to order searches until the mortgage offer and/or the draft contract pack has been received.