Conveyance fees and additional charges ..

H

houseclearou

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Hi

A friend was recently quoted a fee of 1200 euro (plus VAT) for the conveyance of a newly built apartment. When he got the bill he was shocked to see an additional charge that amounted to about 650 euro for Law Searchers. Is this usual? I would have thought that this would have been included in the 1200 euro fee? At no point was he advised of this additional fee.
 
Hi Clubman

Many thanks for your response. I had previously read the thread you mentioned. However, I don't think it answers my question. The apartment that my friend is buying is a new apartment. I would have expected that the searches would have been a small part of the overall bill - perhaps a 100-200 euro. I'm basing this on my recollection of what I was charged a few years ago. Perhaps I'm missing something or perhaps even though the solicitor lists the 650 euro as being for legal seraches that it also includes other charges. What are other buyers being charged for these searches?
 
Did your friend query the charges with his solicitor and, if so, what explanation was given?
 
Hi Clubman

Like a lot of Irish people he was going to pay the charge without querying it. His invoice shows the charge is for Legal Searches. If this is the case then it appears a good deal higher than what I would have previously paid. It would be good to get some feedback on what others have paid for Legal Searches for a new property before going back to query the charge.
 
We were quoted €200 for law searches.

Am I understanding correctly that the entire bill (ex VAT) was €1200?? To my mind that is very reasonable but for €650 of that figure to be law searches alone seems a little unreasonable? Are you sure that postage and new folio charges etc are not included in that figure of €650?
 
Hi Newbie

The professional fee was 1200 euro plus VAT. Postage, photocopying, couriers etc. was charged separately - I can't remember what figure these amounted to but it looked about right. The 650 euro for legal searches was in addition of the 1200 euro. This seems high but perhaps if it also included folio registrations etc it might be about right?
 
I've seen cases where solicitors offer special deals to new apartment owners simply because they (presumably) can reap the rewards of economies of scale in terms of land searches - i.e. they (presumably) don't have to do a new search for each apartment on the development. If your friend's solicitor is'nt doing other apartments in the development then the fee may be reasonable, if (s)he is doing other apartments then it's probably a rip off.
 
I don't think it matters what the solicitors arrangement is, €650 for searches alone sounds like a rip-off. I personally would do as clubman suggests, call the solicitor and query the figure and express your dissappointment if it is for searches only.
 
Hi Glenbhoy

Very interesting point. I know my friend has at least one other friend that bought in the same development and used the same solicitor. I don't know what he charged the other buyer but I would have also thought that the searches would not necessarily have to be replicated for each buyer?
 
Searches are done to the day of completion. Not all sales in an estate complete on one day. Could be anywhere between 2 and 40 depending on the size of an estate. A purchasers solicitor is looking for (e.g.) judgments, charges, judgment mortgages, land registry burdens, all of which can appear at any time. If any of you out there are looking for a cheap deal by relying on old searches, congratulations. One massive great big false economy. Ther is no reason why a solicitor would not just get one set of searches ( against vendor) and split the cost between several clients completing on an estate in the one day.

In saying that 650.00 is a lot and I suggest that OP asks for a breakdown. He is entitled to see the copy invoice from the Law Searchers. I suspect that that 650 includes registration fees.

People commenting here might be as well off suggesting a practical approach ( e.g. check bill, ask for breakdown, report back) before automatically assuming (a) rip off or (b) bloody solicitors overcharging.

mf
 
People commenting here might be as well off suggesting a practical approach ( e.g. check bill, ask for breakdown, report back) before automatically assuming (a) rip off or (b) bloody solicitors overcharging.
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There are obviously merits with that, however, given the relatively closed shop in this country with relation to conveyancing (which is presumably a formality in the case of new build apartments), are we not always justifed in calling the conveyancing fee a rip off?? (I would'nt call it overcharging because that's just business)
 
Glenbhoy said:
are we not always justifed in calling the conveyancing fee a rip off??
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I don't think so. Just look at the different professional conveyancing fees on offer (everything from c. €600 to a percentage of the purchase price). Surely this is evidence that such prices are not fixed and certainly not necessarily rip-offs?
which is presumably a formality in the case of new build apartments
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On what basis do you assume this to be the case?

Note that I am not a solicitor.
 
The legal work in the purchase of an apartment is most certainly not a formality.

New- build estate houses can be relatively straightforward (not always, but they can be). New-build apartments are rarely straightforward. The title documents can run to hundreds of pages; the apartment lease (usually a 999 year lease) can itself run to 60 pages, and there is no well-defined standard for these, so you can come across quirks and anomalies far more often than in a housing estate.

If by "closed shop" it is intended to suggest that there are restrictive work and charging practices akin to those once common in the trade union movement, then it is a myth that we have a closed shop in conveyancing;

The idea commonly touted is that the work should be opened up to licensed conveyancers. In Scotland (whose legal market more closely mirrors ours than does the UK) they tried this. when our Law Society analysed this a year or so ago, they had a grand total of two licensed conveyancers in Scotland. The Scottish consumer must inevitably (directly or indirectly) pay the increased cost of whatever regulatory regime is in place to facilitate this token competition.
 
Many thanks for the replies and some interesting points. In reply to MF and the following ...

>> 'If any of you out there are looking for a cheap deal by relying on old searches, congratulations. One massive great big false economy. Ther is no reason why a solicitor would not just get one set of searches ( against vendor) and split the cost between several clients completing on an estate in the one day'.

No one is saying that one should rely on old searches. However, many of the historical searches would not need to be replicated for each buyer. If the buyers that the solicitor is representing were to complete on different dates (which may or may not be the case here) then I would have thought that the additional searches would involve nothing more than searches for any changes since the last search. Perhaps my understanding of how the process works is incorrect.

I would agree that perhaps the solicitor has invoiced incorrectly and that the fee of 650 euro includes more than the searches. Otherwise I would think that the charge is excessive.
 
houseclearou said:
If the buyers that the solicitor is representing were to complete on different dates (which may or may not be the case here) then I would have thought that the additional searches would involve nothing more than searches for any changes since the last search.
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Is there a difference? I doubt it...
 
650 seems like a lot for searches but could be accurate. If the purchase is of an apartment in a new development and a combination registered/ unregistered title the searches can get very expensive particularly, as is increasingly the case, the developer is subsale-ing from a number of individuals. Also if the solicitor only has one property in the development and if, as again is often the case, the developers solicitor refuses to hand over a negative search, as they are supposed to under the terms of the general conditons, the purchasers solicitor can end up having to do searches going back 40 years on the development with only one client to bill all the prior stuff to. I now estimate searches on apartments, without a planning search, at 350 because I have been caught a few times. It is, as other postings show, difficult to go back, particularly to a first time buyer, and tell them that the outlays are considerably more than quoted. On a fee of about 1000 for conveyancing absorbing 250 or more for searches is not good for the bottom line. If the searches are less than billed the over payment is returned to the client. This story of the 650 worries me and I hope it was a mistake but I have had search bills of 350 add a planning search of up to 160 depending on the county then 650 is not far off. The bottom line is that expensive searches are the fault of the developers efforts to save stamp duty and their solicitors refusal to produce negative searches. The governments failure to move on the law reform commission's recomendation to do away with sheriffs searches is another source. I would be very interested to know if the solicitor can back up the seach fee with a law searchers bill and if so what development it relates to.
 
ClubMan said:
On what basis do you assume this to be the case?

Note that I am not a solicitor.
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I had assumed on the basis of rationality (not that often comes into the legal process), I have in the interim got confirmation that my theory does apply at least sometimes, from an experienced solicitor. Obviously, every case is different, but in general according to my acquaintance new build apartments are extremely easy to convey. In most instances the developer actually provides a booklet of title to the vendee solicitor, this is normally done to a very high standard in order to avoid hassles from 50 different solicitors. In other cases the title itself is normally easily defined as the developer registers the plot of land as a new folio (don't really understand all that myself), whilst searches must still be carried out, they normally only entail a few bank charges against the land.
Finally, as you would expect, if the solicitor is acting for several parties purchasing in the development, it cuts out duplication of the work to a large extent regardless of closing date. Whilst there still must be some additional work for each unit, it's not extensive.
I fully expect some of our solicitors to cry foul here, and admittedly I don't fully understand the complexities of conveyancing (bar that it accounts for approx 35% of total solicitors revenue), but this is my understanding.
 
Glenbhoy said:
I had assumed

...

my theory does apply at least sometimes

...

In most instances

...

this is normally done

...

In other cases the title itself is normally easily defined
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Lots of qualifiers there that suggest that it's not safe to assume a priori that this to be the norm and, as such, it is probably prudent to proceed with caution. In any case buyers should always get their own individual legal advice and I don't know that doing some sort of bulk deal is feasible, practical or advisable.

For example - as far as I know some developments may be on sites that are split between Land Registry and Registry of Deeds and, as such, different charges and procedures apply on that front alone.
 
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