Solictor's fees for conveyancing

Z

zoso

Registered User
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Hi

Can anyone advise approximately what a solicitors fee's may be on the purchase of a €60k house.

I've just completed a sale and while it wasn't plain sailing i have been hit with a bill of €1500+vat which to me seems very excessive.

The above is just the solicitors fee's and doesn't include land register etc.

I tried to purchase the said house in 2009 when the property was €170k but it fell through at the last minute and my fee then was €1200+vat but there was an awful lot more work done on it back then than now.

Any suggestions whether it is excessive or not.

I see others do it for €799+vat.
 
The solicitor should have provided you with an estimate of fees . VAT and outlays in advance.

You would then have had the opportunity to shop around.

€799+vat, in my opinion, is well below cost. I charge €1750+vat which still does not cover the time and effort involved. Clients shop around and it comes down to whether a solicitor is willing to match a below cost price. I am regularly asked to match lower quotes and equally regularly reckon that an under charging solicitor is no more than a busy fool.

€1500+vat is not expensive for what is involved. You could have gotten it cheaper. That does not mean that you were overcharged.

mf
 
Around 800 euro appears to be the norm now a days. I have no idea how Solicitors can afford to do it for that especially if there is a any sort of complication and there always seems to be a complication.
 
It all depends on how the solicitors practice is set up.

Most of the work could be done by an admin person with some training, say 15 hours at €20 per hour, an hours work by the solicitor to review and perhaps give some guidance. 1 hour by €80. Thats €380, double that to (generously) cover overheads and make some profit, that is how you get €799.

Most solicitors however do all the work themselves, so effectively you are paying a qualified solicitors rate for pretty basic admin work.

The Troika suggested that our legal sector was highly inefficient.
 

I don't think that 799 generously covers overheads, it might if you were doing 10 transfers a day etc. But those days are gone. My own solicitor quoted me 1K in the last year (his own fee, not VAT etc)

Zoso appears not to have asked the fee in advance, which is a very bad idea. But it's equally bad that the solicitor, who is obliged to, did not give him a S68 letter outlining the fee.

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1994/en/act/pub/0027/sec0068.html

The only option Zoso now has is to try and haggle the price down.
 
Is is standard practice for a solicitor to charge a professional fee for conveyancing (selling a house) based on a percentage of the sale price?
 
My dilemma is that the solicitor with the highest fee (which is based on the percentage of the sale price) has done some work for my husband in the past and the other two are unknown. With all of the recent publicity about some rogue solicitors, is the divil you know better than the unknown?
 
How many here bought the cheapest brand when buying their tv, car or washing machine?

Cheapest is not always the most suitable.



Steven
http://www.bluewaterfp.ie
 
SBarrett said:
How many here bought the cheapest brand when buying their tv, car or washing machine?

Cheapest is not always the most suitable.



Steven
http://www.bluewaterfp.ie (www.bluewaterfp.ie)
Click to expand...

Just like paying the most doesn't mean you are getting the best either!
 

How much are you being quoted? Top to bottom?

In reality, if you've gone to each on the basis of recommendation, there probably isn't much reason to stick with the person you know. In saying that, I usually prefer to deal with people I like, trust and know will do a good job and am willing to pay for that. It would have to be a very significant price difference to make me move.

mf
 
Sunny said:
Just like paying the most doesn't mean you are getting the best either!
Click to expand...

Of course not. That's where you have to use your judgement. Has the solicitor been recommended, is the solicitor going to do the work or get a trainee to do it, will they return your calls, do they come across as sincere and that they will work for you.

A client of mine also assesses the building the accountant/ solicitor etc works out of. The fancier the building, the higher the overheads, the higher the fees



Steven
http://www.bluewaterfp.ie
 


Hi zoso

I also recently purchased a house for £65000 and my conveyance fees were as follows

Stamp Duty €650.00
Registry of Deeds fee €50.00
Land Registry fees on first registration €130.00
Fee for copy Folio and Map €8.15
Law Searchers fees €545.84

My solicitor said the reason the law searches fees were so high was because they were so many names on the deeds and he was surprised it was so expensive himself. My solicitor was excellent and I had no fault with him at all. The sale went through smoothly and he was originally recommended to me. May I add it was a leasehold house if that makes any difference.
 
Last edited:
Hi ZOso

I just notices the figure you quoted was for your solicitors fees, they do look excessive, mine were £1100 inc vat, the sale was quite straightforward and it all went through within two months.

I would advise you to ask your solicitor for a detailed breakdown of the quoted figure maybe the sale was quite complicated and it took a lot of his time.
 
seperate contracts property and contents- higher fee?

Hi there, sorry to piggyback but I'm presently sourcing conveyancing fees and have a question. I would like to know if the fee is likely to be higher if there are 2 contracts: 1 for the property and another for contents. The vendor wants to do the sale that way and I'm wondering if that would add to the complexity and the cost of the conveyancing?
 
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