Affordable housing - Solicitor

Q

Quigley

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We are hopefully buying a house with fingal and will be having our final loan approval meeting in a couple of weeks. My question is in regards to a solcitor, do i need one and if so what will the solicitor be required to do as I assume the council themselves will be drawing up the contracts. How much would the solictor charge?
 
Re: Affordable housing - Solictor

I think you should have your own solicitor, but I am a practising solicitor so I might be expected to say this.

While it is always useful to have your own solicitor, I have certainly come across a number of 'shared ownership' transactions where the buyer simply signed the papers in the office of the Council solicitors. I am not saying that this is advisable - merely that it can be done and that I have seen it done more than once. If you are really stuck for money, it is certainly an option.

If you are not borrowing from the Council (either through shared ownership or otherwise) but from a bank, then you definitely need your own solicitor - the transaction cannot happen without you having one. It is possible that in some council areas you could hire the same solicitors as used by the council, which might somewhat reduce transaction costs, but I would not be familiar with the set-up in Fingal (and, again, to be clear I am not recommending this anyway).

Regarding solicitors charges, there are a number of postings on this topic - do a search and you should find them easily enough.
 
Re: Affordable housing - Solictor

Thanks MOB, had a word with fingal and said that all the contracts are drawn up by their own solcitor and there is no scope for changing anything on the contracts. Having our own solcitor would just mean someone sitting down with us and explaining in "english" what the contract entails. As we're on a tight budget im still in two minds whether to get one or not.
 
Re: Affordable housing - Solictor

Hi Quigley,

I am in the position of getting an apartment from SDCC and I have to give a solicitors name and contact details with my acceptance of the property. I have done a lot of emailing and phoning solicitors this week. They have all given me quotes for conveyancing but one solicitor who has had experience of the affordable housing purchasing informed me that I do not need full conveyancing done as the CC do most of the legal work. All I need in their oppinion is a consultation with the solicitor to go over the contract with me to make sure I understand what I am signing and for them to write a letter to the CC on my behalf accepting the house and the contract. They quoted me €185 for this service which is a hell of a sight better that the €2,000 plus every one else quoted me. Now if I could just get through to Propertypath and get a straight answer from them about the legal end I will be laughing.
 
Re: Affordable housing - Solictor

Hi
I bought from Fingal under Affordable scheme and just used their solicitor. 1 year later I haven't had any issues, but then again, haven't tried to sell yet! I wouldn't imagine there's much flexibility in the contract anyway. It has constraints such as claw back etc., once you're aware of those...
 
I rang the solicitors whom we have our will with and she siad the only time they would see contracts with regards to county councils was when the council was not lending the money. She advised me not to bother getting seperate legal advice and just to go with fingal's solicitor. It would be a different matter if we were lending from a bank but we're getting our mortgage from fingal county council.
 
Re: Affordable housing - Solictor

Duilleog, you will definitely need to get your own solicitor and he/she will have to provide full conveyancing work if you are buying under SDCC'c affordable housing initiative. If you are a member of a credit union, you could try their homebuy/homesell scheme where they have a roster of solicitors around the country who will do your conveyancing for €9999 plus outlay plus vat
 
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