Legal Fees on purchase

sillysocks

I recently purchased my first house and got quite a shock when the solicitors bill arrived! The solicitor had done business with my parnters family for a long time which is why we went with him but I'm wondering now whether that was such a good idea.

The total fee for the purchase was 3750eur, and they then gave a 570 discount (!?) because of families relationship bringing total to 3200 ish. We just paid this but now after hearing some other stories I'm wondering if we have been ripped off. The house price was just 210,000.
A friend has just also bought her first house and her legal fees were only 1800 (her house was more expensive-not sure if that matters).

The breakdown we got is below - can someone let me know if it looks right or if there is something there that we should go back to him about?

Commissioners fees on declaration - 40
Land Reg fees on transfer - 375
Copy folio&file plan map - 25
Land reg fee on mortgage - 125
Land reg fee for cert of charge - 6
Seach Fees - 120
Legal fees for purchase - 2000
Legal fees for mortgage - 500
Misc postage,telephone etc - 50
Vat - 535

Thanks!

Trotter

I'd be really interested to hear the opinions on this one too! Mine was very high also..

Mods, maybe you could redirect this to the legal forum if its still quiet after a day or two?

Arcadian

We moved 2 years ago and the fees were €1750 total. That was for buying a property at €220,000 as well as selling our previous home.

sillysocks

Arcadian wrote:

We moved 2 years ago and the fees were €1750 total. That was for buying a property at €220,000 as well as selling our previous home.

We had originally planned for it to be about 2,200 so got quite a shock when it was 1000 dearer and that was supposedly with a 500eur discount.
Ideally if someone could tell me what their breakdown was so I can see where ours is very high and see from that whether we have a case to go back to them and argue it.

Lex Luthor

sillysocks wrote:

Legal fees for purchase - 2000
Legal fees for mortgage - 500
Thanks!

This is where you got screwed...all the rest are straight forward charges.

I got charged €1000 for this on my last purchase only 12months ago. Did you get a breakdown of costs before you proceeded with them?

Mine was
Land Registry Fee on Transfer = €375
Land Reg fee on Mortgage = 125
Up to Date Portfolio & filed plan = 25
Land Cert = 25
Charge Cert = 6
Comm for Oaths fees = 60
Searches = 110
Misc (Phone/Post) = 60
Prof Fee = 1000

VAT only charged on Prof Fee & Misc = 222.60

sillysocks

Lex Luthor wrote:

I got charged €1000 for this on my last purchase only 12months ago. Did you get a breakdown of costs before you proceeded with them?

Stupidly no - the usual situation of him being a family aquaintance/friend - we were told he'd do us a deal...... and when we saw the 500 off we thought that he had - until other ppl started telling us that it sounded very expensive!

TheBigLebowski

He charged 2000 euro for his own fee but most solicitors are charging 1000 now. Also 500 for the mortgage stamp duty is too much. My solicitor told me it was 1 euro for every 1000 ie yours should be about 220 euro...

PRman

Yeah, 1000 professional fee is about right. Most people get charged 100-1500, but if you shop around it should only be 1000. Lucky for me a mate is a solicitor so he's only charging me 500

sapper

I'm selling a 50% share of a house bought with a friend to that friend for 250K and and am also buying a property for 495K. The solicitor is charging me EUR1,900 for the 50% sale (very straightforward as we bought with the same solicitor and they are taking care of both sides) and EUR4,950K for the purchase. This is before VAT and registry fees etc.

So should I only be paying EUR2,000 and not EUR6,850?

aniascor

Sounds like your solicitor is charging 1% of the value of the house - which is common, but given current prices, is not good value. You can find solicitors who offer fixed price conveyancy services of about €950 +VAT - no matter what price your house is.

bullrunner

sapper wrote:

I'm selling a 50% share of a house bought with a friend to that friend for 250K and and am also buying a property for 495K. The solicitor is charging me EUR1,900 for the 50% sale (very straightforward as we bought with the same solicitor and they are taking care of both sides) and EUR4,950K for the purchase. This is before VAT and registry fees etc.

So should I only be paying EUR2,000 and not EUR6,850?

Sapper...for 1 you should only be paying on your sale...the person buying will pay on the purchase.


2 what you and the person buying should do is approach the solicitor and say that as the solicitor is doing both the buy/sell side (not good practice btw..) he doesnt have as much work to do on the transaction and as such should give you a discount. If he/she wont tell them that you will have a different solicitor do the legal work on the purchase side (ie the more exp side for you and more lucrative for him)


for the OP...no sympathy..you got ripped off because you didnt bother to get a break down or shop around before you agreed...when Mary Harney tells ya to shop around...shop around!!:D

Trotter

bullrunner wrote:

for the OP...no sympathy..you got ripped off because you didnt bother to get a break down or shop around before you agreed...when Mary Harney tells ya to shop around...shop around!!:D

Ya know what I hate? People who laugh at other people's misfortune. When was the last time you went up to a total stranger who was looking for assistance and said with a big smile on your face... "No sympathy!!"

I hope things stay as well for you that you do everything perfectly and never need help.

BIG SMILE right back at ya!!! :rolleyes:

delly

1% is a bit expensive now, but back in the day it would be the norm. The fixed fees don't change much, but the professional fees would have been a lot cheaper if you had of shoped around. I can understand doing it with someone who has a family relationship, but a breakdown should have been sought first.

My own solicitior charged me €3000 + fees + VAT. He was our family solicitor, but i made sure to compare with a general solicitor as well. This was for the sale of a house at €254,000 and the purchase of a house at €298,000, which i reckon was good value.

sapper

bullrunner wrote:

Sapper...for 1 you should only be paying on your sale...the person buying will pay on the purchase.

Don't know what you're on about there - I'm buying a house with the proceeds of the sale, but everytime the solicitor does work on my behalf I get an invoice. So I get charged for the buy and the sell. Or do you know any solicitors that work for free?:D

I get the point about shopping around, but these guys are very thorough and have done a good job in the past - up until recently were owned by a mate of mines father. I kinda automatically picked up the phone to my usual guy and when I asked about cost he said something like "Don't worry, we'll look after you". That said, they do have the rent to pay on the big Georgian house on Fitzwilliam Square....

Exactly what am I getting for EUR5,000 that I wouldn't get from someone charging EUR1,000? Has anyone had a bad experience with a EUR1,000 guy?

You didn't get ripped off at all.

You got charged the normal fees. Given the cut throat competition there are Solicitors who will charge even as little as €500 because their secretaries will do the conveyancing, but many practitioners will not engage in the practice of cut price conveyancing. I mean, do people shop around for cheap heart surgeons before going in to hospital? You paid the standard Law Society recommended fee, if you got a good service you have nothing to complain about whatsoever. Remember, the Solicitor has spent about 6 years intensively training to get to the point where he can check the title - I suspect the Vendor paid an auctioneer 2% and they only need a digital camera and a brass neck...

Oral Slang

I'm getting charged €950 each way on selling my current house & buying my new one.
Does anyone know what the end figure will be approx? I know the €950 is ex vat x 2, but I don't know what else will be charged on top of that. I want to start getting my figures right, so I know what has to be taken from our equity...

Cheers

aniascor

Conor74 - I think the reason people feel they are being ripped off is because house prices have doubled in some places over the past few years, which means that if you pay 1% the conveyancy fee has doubled also. Is it twice as much work just because the house cost more? I doubt it.

lomb

yeah but professional incomes have doubled also in the past 5 years imho.
i think u were charged a fair amount. u cant beat a good solicitor. a bad solicitor could lose u a purchase and cost u HUGH money or be late in closing a sale on purchase and mean like my friend who got a cut price solicitor he still hadnt got the money 6 months later after the deal was done!costing u HUGH money as u couldnt buy something else.
u get what u pay for at the end of the day. ul need a solicitor for life pretty much like for wills/probabte, more property purchase/sale for yourself or as an investment, renting out, neighbourly disputes over boundaries and noise, and the list goes on. if u got a good service id pay him without query tbh.

sapper

I raised some of the points here with my solicitor and he offered to knock 2K off the price. So that's down from 1% to 0.75%. Not bad....

aniascor

aniascor wrote:

house prices have doubled in some places over the past few years, which means that if you pay 1% the conveyancy fee has doubled also. Is it twice as much work just because the house cost more? I doubt it.

That's true, and it is a fair point. But remember the Solicitors outlays have gone way up too, take wages for legal Secretaries or employed Solicitors, or rent, or buying an office in the middle of a town. So while some adjustment may have been in order, slashing fees by 70% (say the difference between the scale fee and the yellow pack fee on a 300k house) in a time of rising outlays doesn't make economic sense. Hence the secretary or apprentices do the work that is not economically viable while the Solicitors concentrate on stuff for which they get proper pay.

aniascor

I take your point about increasing outlays. And I have no problem with solicitors charging a fair price for the work they do - but it's when that fee is directly linked to the house price that I have difficulty believing that the price charged is based on the work done.

I am using a solicitor from home (Limerick) to do the conveyancing on a house I'm buying in Dublin - but there's no way I would have used him if he was going to base his fee on my Dublin house price. The prices in the area I'm buying in have risen 50-60000 in the past six months, so a percentage-based price would mean a nice increase in his fee over those few months. I can't believe his outlay would rise as much in the same amount of time. He quoted me a fixed price at the start and sent me a breakdown of all the costs I could expect to encounter, including land registry fees, stamp duty, etc. I think it's only fair for the pricing to be transparent - then again, it's up to the customer to insist on this transparency I suppose.

(Of course, the transaction hasn't been completed yet - so I may be back here in a couple of weeks eating my words about fixed-price solicitors!)

aniascor

aniascor wrote:

He quoted me a fixed price at the start and sent me a breakdown of all the costs I could expect to encounter, including land registry fees, stamp duty, etc. I think it's only fair for the pricing to be transparent - then again, it's up to the customer to insist on this transparency I suppose.

Proper order. Fixing prices is not only desirable, it's standard - the Solicitor should quote a price at the outset in the Section 68 letter and stick to it. It's underpricing or providing the service at a price that makes it not viable (and €500 for potentially hours of work is not viable in any office) that is objectionable.

aniascor

Deleted User wrote:

It's underpricing or providing the service at a price that makes it not viable (and €500 for potentially hours of work is not viable in any office) that is objectionable.

Agreed.

sillysocks

Thanks all for the information. We just felt that because it was a very straightforward first time buyer case there wasn't much justification for the large difference in price. I rang around a few other solicitors and got a price of approx 1000 from 3 of them in the area for the legal fees part which was difference of 1000 from what we paid.

I then went back and queried it with the solicitor and yesterday found out he was going to refund me eur 500! He went on about how it was "only money" and we wouldn't argue over it, and sure what was 500 eur....... he obviously hasn't just bought his first house and had to fork out money non stop for the last month!!
Anyway was delighted to get something back.