Average solicitor's fees for conveyancing these days?

Re: Average solicitor's fees?

monkeyman said:
I availed of a €950 + vat + outlay offer from Barker Brokers, and yesterday I got a bill for €2700 !!
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There is a general feeling that the "outlay" is the opened door for making money in a non-transparent way , as it seems to be difficult to get precise clarification/justification as to what is really included in the outlay and large variations between practices have been noticed.
It includes things like searches, Registration fee, photocopying, postage... Nothing really that could justify those variations.


So, €950 is to get the punter, then you get the real bill .....

It is a bit like the airlines advertising tickets for €0.01 but you end up paying €50 after having added "handling fee, luggage,tax, levy...".

The advertised price therefore become meaningless and misleading...
 
Re: Average solicitor's fees?

The outlay and VAT etc. should be the same no matter what solicitor you use, so aren't necessarily relevant if going on price alone, i.e. only the professional fee will vary.
 
Re: Average solicitor's fees?

2Pack said:
On first glance it does indeed.

If stamp duty at 7.5% STB is included it should be way higher.

If not why not, is this a remortgage ? We are talking over €1500 worth of outlays excepting stamp duty . How are they broken down ???
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I'll break it down tomorrow. Dont have the bill with me here. Stamp Duty was 6%
 
Re: Average solicitor's fees?

monkeyman said:
I'll break it down tomorrow. Dont have the bill with me here. Stamp Duty was 6%
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6% of 470k is €28k alone .Its the biggest OUTLAY of them all if applicable .

I thought €1500 was 'odd' .
 
The two biggies (apart from SD) are stamp duty on the mortgage of €410 (0.1% of the mortgage) and registration and transfer of the mortgage at €750 on houses over €385,001. These add up to €1160, professional fee inc. VAT €1150 so you're at €2310 already. I would guess that the balance would be searches and minor sundry costs. It'll be interesting to see the breakdown though.

Sarah

www.rea.ie
 
Here is the breakdown:

The solicitor was useless as well, I had to make the calls to their estate agent and solicitor to find out what was happening and I even called out to the vendors house twice as I was getting nowhere. On the closing day, I had to ring all around again to get the deal closed.

If someone could explain what the costs mean, I'd appreciate it also.


House Cost: 470K
Mortgage:410K

Professional Fee €950
Scheduling Fee €25
Postage, Calls, Photocopy €25

Total €1000
VAT €210

Total €1210

Outlay
Couriers Fees €80 (from dublin to drogheda)
Commisioners Fees €20
Law Searchers Fees €70
Land Registry Fees €625
Land Registry Fees to register Charge €156
Stamp Duty on Mortgage €410
Stamp Duty on Counterpart €12.50
Miscellaneous €75 (fees which might be incurred in registering the title)

Total €1453.50

Overall Total €2664.50
 
monkeyman said:
The solicitor was useless as well...
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Given that you chose this solicitor on the basis of a cheap price deal offered by a third party, did this surprise you?
 
ubiquitous said:
Given that you chose this solicitor on the basis of a cheap price deal offered by a third party, did this surprise you?
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I had an original quote of €1400 + vat + outlay from this solicitor, and I was impressed with what they had to say. I checked them out on the net for reputation and it was quite good. Then the Broker got a deal with them for €950. When I got the ball rolling it was being dealth with by the solicitors son, who looked like he had just qualified. WHile the work he did was fine, there was no urgency about him. Very quiet, could not get hold of vendors solicitor etc. So thats where I had to make the phone calls and call out to teh vendors.
 
Scheduling is part of professional fees. The scheduler is a person in their office .

Courier ??? Really .

The commissioner (of oaths) is a solicitor . Again that is part of professional fees and not a separate outlay .

Misc, what misc . They charged you for photocopying and courier already so get a breakdown of these misc charges and query line by line


Finally

Land Registry Fees €625
Land Registry Fees to register Charge €156
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get a full breakdown and receipts for those two
 
Comissioner for Oaths is always charged separately as an independent solicitor must sign, not the one in question who is recieving the professional fee.

I would love to see Auctioneer fees scrutinized in such a way, considering they do quite 'different' work and have not studied for many years to obtain the requisite professional knowledge & qualifications that solicitors have in order to convey property.

Further a younger, recently qualified solicitor , has more up to date knowledge & 3 years experience at least from their training.
 
I would not agree that a recently qualified solicitor will necessarily have appropriate practical experience from the training. Furthermore, I do not accept that the Law Society training equips solicitors entirely to practice law - relevant and good experience together with commitment to CLE is what really counts. As regards appropriate experience, it will depend on the type of work their master gives them. Most of that will be procedural, and the quality of their work experience will depend on the quality of the practice in terms of teaching them to examine title and raise/respond appropriately to requisitions on title together with good precedent and organisation structure, something which some practices may not have - but most of the issues that the client experiences are practical - such as (poor) interraction with other parties Solicitor, loan cheque issue and actual closing dates.

2Pack your comments on outlay are misinformed, as SNB points out. Couriers are sometimes used to expedite process, which is what a client may want.

It never ceases to surprise me that people continue to use auctioneers on a commission basis (amounting to €3/4k plus VAT and outlay) to sell into a sellers market, yet this website devotes so much time over a couple of hundred quid or even less charged by Solicitors.
 
The courier fee is fine. i asked for this. I will be looking for receipt for same.

The Land Registry Fee looks fine at 625.
Stamp Duty at 410 is fine

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But what are the Law Searchers Fee, Land Registry Fee to register Charge & Stamp Duty on Counterpart.

The Miscelaneous charge is for "It is our practice to withhold €75 in respect of miscellaneous fees which might be incured in registering your title"

Not sure what this is for either
 
Hello...remember me? Original poster?

Seems like I struck a nerve here and my head is spinning with all the jargon. I asked a simple (as I thought) question and it turned into a cat-fight.

Well, bottom line seems to be do your research and go on personal recommendation for a solicitor ONLY. I've heard many stories like the OP's on people dragging their feet and holding up a deal.

Point of information - I'll hopefully be paying off the mortgage I have left (€97,000) out of the proceeds of the sale and wanted to do my sums to see how much cash I would have left to spend on a house taking in stamp duty, solicitor's fees and estate agents fees, assuming I get around the €550,000 for my present house.

That's all I want to know! But it sure has opened my eyes to read this thread. I could be blinded by science and end up with a whopping bill if I'm not very careful. So I need a solictor who's recommended, honest, a mover and will deliver what he/she promises. Tall order, it seems.
 
Sophia2457 said:
So I need a solictor who's recommended, honest, a mover and will deliver what he/she promises. Tall order, it seems.
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Have you asked trusted family members, friends, colleagues etc. for recommendations?
 
That's exactly what I will be doing, Clubman.
I just asked my question here cos it's not general knowledge we're thinking of moving and, as I said, I wanted to do my sums.
Didn't realise there were so many issues involved - scared the daylights out of me.
 
monkeyman said:
The courier fee is fine. i asked for this. I will be looking for receipt for same.

The Land Registry Fee looks fine at 625.
Stamp Duty at 410 is fine

--------------------

But what are the Law Searchers Fee, Land Registry Fee to register Charge & Stamp Duty on Counterpart.

The Miscelaneous charge is for "It is our practice to withhold €75 in respect of miscellaneous fees which might be incured in registering your title"

Not sure what this is for either
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Searches have to be made on closing, usually amount to a few hundred euro, an outside company does this and then they bill the solicitor. You have to register the charge in the Land Registry - this is a necessity - you have to pay it, simple as that. Same as stamping the counterpart, the solicitor will have paid this on your behalf so obviously you have to pay him back.
 
I recently came across this article by a solicitor about the role of the solicitor in a house purchase transaction. I think it's relevant to this topic.

[broken link removed]
 
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