No Hidden Extras
ARTICLES AND FAQS
Some of the things people ask and problems they have, with our comments and answers.
You may have seen quotes from some firms - they seem so cheap to start with....
Then...
You find the hidden extras:
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The Fee for work on the mortgage. (They quote you a low fee for the work on a sale or purchase and you do not realise that the work on the mortgage is extra, sometimes a LOT extra.) Mortgage lenders have to set out a figure for legal costs on the mortgage in section 8 of their mortgage offers. This is needed to calculate the interest rate APR. Most of the time this has nothing to do with anything, but some solicitors charge this on top for doing the legal work on the mortgage. It is usually between £100 and £200, but National Westminster Homeloans and Royal Bank of Scotland insert much higher figures, pushing up towards £400-£800 or more, and some solicitors have the cheek to add this on to their fee for conveyancing on the purchase.
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The Leasehold Fee (We do charge more for dealing with leasehold flats but INCLUDE the extra in our figure.)
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The Unregistered Title fee. (Where it is possible that the title is unregistered we will warn you beforehand and take this into account when fixing our fee.)
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Professional Indemnity Contribution (to go towards paying for the firm's professional negligence insurance). Isn't that an overhead?
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The Fee for completing the Stamp Duty Form (We had to put our fees up at the end of 2003 to cover this and that's INCLUDED too in our fees!)
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Postages and telephone calls - usually an arbitrary round figure plus VAT - no attempt to work out the actual cost of them. Aren't they an overhead too anyway? (We would charge a little for this only for something unusual such as an INTERNATIONAL telephone call.)
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Expedition Fee - if the matter has to be dealt with very quickly then an extra charge is justified, but we have seen some firms' websites where they bury in small print the fact that they charge around £100 more for completing a transaction in less than 3 weeks from exchange of contracts. Given that the normal period between exchange and completion is around 10-14 days, this is a bit rich!
The latest scam we've noticed - the fee for asking additional questions on a purchase. It is very rare for there not be some extra points that need to be raised - that's what you pay us for - if only to remind the seller's solicitors that they have forgotten to enclose copies of certain documents that they should have sent. We have heard of one "cheap" firm apparently charging £150 extra for this!
The firms that try to make their fees look lower in this way lose a lot of repeat business....their clients come to us.....
Sometimes there ARE extras, but these are nearly always something specific to the property that you are buying or selling or your personal circumstances. For instance on a sale sometimes it is necessary to get copies of planning permissions from the Council. There would be a small extra charge if you went abroad during the transaction and we drew up a power of attorney to allow someone to sign documents on your behalf.
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Richard Webster & Co 30 Leigh Road Eastleigh Hampshire SO50 9DT
No Hidden Extras from Richard Webster & Co Conveyancing Solicitors for the Southampton and Eastleigh areas.
Page Last Revised 22/02/11