Cost of solcitior when buying and selling home

J

johnnybegood

Registered User
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122
Hi, have searched around using google etc but finding it hard to pinpoint good examples.

Basically i will be selling a house and purchasing another house. My solicitor has given me a qoute as follows:

Fee for selling €1,400 plus vat
Fee for purchase €1,600 plus vat

thats €3,000 plus vat plus outlay. I was also told this includes "Discount". Is this a good deal or bad deal? Seems a little high to me. Should i maybe go with someone like [broken link removed]

If i do go with someone else, does it complicated the sale. For example my solicitor obviously dealt with the house purchase when we bought. Will she have all the documents etc. Will these need to be sent to the new solicitor etc?

Just want to know what people think?

Thanks, Johnny
 
Under REA's Homebuyer package there is a flat fee for the sale of a house (irrespective of price) of €950 + VAT and outlays. On a purchase if the new mortgage is over €250,000 the conveyancing fee is €499 + VAT and outlays.

Sarah

www.rea.ie

Edited to add - there is no need to use the same solicitor every time you move, the title deeds will probably now be with your lender unless you bought less the 2/3 years ago.
 
seems ok to me. we went homebuyhomesell and was charged €1200 i think but this was a great deal - much less than quotes we got from local solicitors in the area for 3% of the property price.

depends on the price of the house and if there was a lot of searches involved.
 
Not to slight any of the service providers in this area as mentioned above but having a bit of experience working in this area sometimes its good to keep in mind the old adage of 'you get what you pay for'. In saying that there are some over priced solicitors still out there, shop around not only on the babsi of price though, but on the basis of experience & good , reliable recommendations. Its one of the most importtant transactions of your lifetime & worth getting done right.

If you were happy with the service your previous solicitor supplied, maybe you could bargain with her. Advise her of the costings you have recieved elsewhere-sometimes a solicitor will come down in order to retain your businness & goodwill. This can't be bought.
 
Johnny,

I am in the process of moving house and so I have to deal with a solicitor for the second time in my life. For my first house I got a solicitor who was charging me a percentage of the cost of the house and is very reputable in my area. It was a nightmare, they were absolutely terrible and also charging top dollar. This time I went with homebuyhomesell.ie for the sale and purchase of my house and while I am only half way through the process I am delighted with the service I am getting. When I told my solicitor from the first purchase that he was way too expensive and told him who I was going with he tried to give me the same story as in the previous thread about service etc. and how he heard that "those 900 jobs" were unreliable and provided a poor service. Not so, and I'm about 3k richer now because I didn't listen to his sales pitch!
 
Con said:
he tried to give me the same story as in the previous thread about service etc. and how he heard that "those 900 jobs" were unreliable and provided a poor service. Not so...
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Do bear in mind that quite a number of AAM users have complained in the past about perceived bad service from discount solicitors.

Not so, and I'm about 3k richer now because I didn't listen to his sales pitch!
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One of the difficult things from a consumer point of view about conveyancing is the fact that bad conveyancing work can hide problems until well into the future, for example when a property is being resold. Lets hope that you are indeed 3k richer through availing of a cheaper quote, and the discount solicitor allocated to you is competent and honest. However, in my book it is a lot safer in the long run to use a solicitor who is recommended by family or friends and whom you can trust on that basis. If that means paying extra, in my book that is a good investment.

btw I'm not a solicitor, nor have I any connections with solicitors except as an occasional customer.
 
Recently moved for the third time. Last two conveyances were through panel on homebuyhomesell and could not complain, but I understand I may have been lucky.

If anyone is looking at solicitors in Munster, PM me and happy to recommend specific.
 
ubiquitous said:
Do bear in mind that quite a number of AAM users have complained in the past about perceived bad service from discount solicitors.
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All I would like to say is that it is obvious that there are some people looking down there noses at those in the profession who are bucking the trend and being more honest with what they charge for the service which they carry out. Can you explain to me why I am having a better experience with a "discount solicitor" than I did with the overpaid one? It seems to me that if you are charging a percentage of the purchase/sale price of a house then it is not an honest reflection of the amount of work carried out, and if someone is not going to be honest with the price that they quote you then that is not a great start and in my opinion is a reflection of the type of person they are.
 
While I wouldn't disagree with the thrust of your post, it is important to note that just as bad conveyancing can be hidden for years, so can good conveyancing. So the recommendations from family or friends may note have much value, unless they relate to conveyancing that was done many years ago. And if the conveyancing was done many years ago, who's to say that the solicitor keeps up the same standards now.
 
Sarah W said:
there is no need to use the same solicitor every time you move, the title deeds will probably now be with your lender unless you bought less the 2/3 years ago.
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Does it really take that long for title deeds to go to lender? Where are they in the mean time? Land Registery? Solicitors?
 
It really depends on the solicitor. Our solicitor is super efficient, last yr when we remortgaged our title deeds were with the bank 2 weeks later. I know of cases where solicitor holds the deeds for yrs (up to 3 or 4) The longer the stay with solr the more lkely the are to get lost.

WRT legal costs, we are probably paying over the odds for our legal fees but personally I think it's worth it for the peace of mind. I wouldn't pay what we're paying if we weren't getting the service to back it up.
 
Oh please don't misunderstand, I wasn't saying cheap means bad, but that because I know our solicitor is good I'm willing to pay above the odds, I wouldn't pay this much for someone I didn't know. If I had no recommendation I'd have gone for the cheapest.
 

The point is really that reputations are usually justified. If a solicitor or other professional is careless or error-prone, customers who encounter difficulties as a result are usually not too slow to tell others of their misfortune. Bad news travels and people tend to hear more about the errors and mistakes made by professional practices than about their successes and achievements. In this context, reputations are valuable because they indicate that the person making the recommendation has confidence in the professional. To justify this level of confidence in the long run, the professional must strive for excellence, and maintain high standards of excellence over long periods of time.

If standards are not maintained, errors will occur and serious problems will arise - even (or especially) the ones that take years to come to light. This happens to legal firms who are careless with conveyancing detail, it happens to accountants who are slack in keeping their clients tax-compliant, it happens to medics who fail to keep their own professional expertise up to date and end up misdiagnosing patients and/or performing inappropriate surgical procedures. It happens also to manufacturers who sell unsafe products and whose reputations are damaged when people are killed or injured as a result.

In the legal world, it is no coincidence that the most successful firms are the well-established practices who can charge premium levels of fees to their customers and still generate high demand for their services. These firms have managed this feat by generating strong reputations for quality in the long term. In contrast, firms who fail to achieve such reputations, those who have good reputations but lose them, and those who earn negative reputations, will experience relative stagnation in their businesses. Prospective customers are not exactly attracted to "Dellboy" solicitors, or to lawyers with track records of failure or involvement in crises. Firms in this bracket can only really generate new business by discounting their fee charges.

Anyone using a "discounted conveyancing service" solicitor should try to find out if there are genuine reasons why this solicitor is discounting their charges, for example if their business is a new or recent start-up. Otherwise there is a risk that the only reason a discount is being offered is because the solicitor is not competent or professional enough to generate custom on the basis of their reputation.
 
just got a quote for selling for 990 plus vat and 990 plus for buying, is the vat 13.5% or 21%?

Is this a decent price?
 
€990+ Outgoings and Vat is it ?????

Not bad, keep looking .

Any mention of the firm on askaboutmoney or other discussion fora , good or bad
 
monstie said:
just got a quote for selling for 990 plus vat and 990 plus for buying, is the vat 13.5% or 21%?

Is this a decent price?
Click to expand...

Very good price. Vat is 21%.
 
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