Solicitors Fees

Hi,
I got the statement of account and bill for the conveyance of a house I bought this week. Under disbursements are the Registration Fees and Search Fees which I thought are rather high.

The price of the house was E180k. The fee for registration was nearly E800, and the searches were E300.

Is there any way I can ask for a reciept for these amounts to verify if this was in fact how much they cost?

Thanks

Yes, pick up the phone and ask, can i have a receipt for these third party charges?

The fees you quote do look high in my experience so you're right to ask for proof.

Puzzling alright.
Basic search fee for closing is €75 (lawlink.ie) - may have done additional searches - if so why? and see when done?;
Registration of land registry title costs €375 where value of property is between 51k and 255k (prai.ie); it is even less where registering registry of deeds title.

I am even more puzzled that this is a surprise to you. Did you not get S68 letter from your solicitor at start of process (Solicitor required to give this)? That would have set out estimate of costs and outlay for the transaction.

I did not recieve the S68 letter.

I used a Northern Solicitor to buy a house in Donegal. They are probably meant to send me similar, but I did not recieve. Only had a verbal agreement on costs.

I phoned the solicitor and asked to see reciepts for land registry and fees. They said they would not have recieved any. I said they must have recieved something back from the registry, and they agreed....they are looking into it?

As above - those charges look high and should be queried:

Useful background information on the legal work involved in conveyancing

Did you use a solicitor in Northern Ireland? That may explain why the searches are expensive as they might have used a northern company to do them. It looks like you have been charged the maximum for Land Registry fees which again could simply be because the solicitor is not based in the Republic.

Land Registry Fees are based on value of transaction, not nationality/location of applicant. They would get an invoice from their law searchers which they should be able to provide you with. They are statutorily obliged to give up-front estimate of costs and outlay - failure to do so is something you can complain to the law society about.

This is odd for a transaction at this level, but not impossible.

Land Registry fee on transfer. €375. Fee on Mortgage (if there is one) €125. Fee on Subdivision (if this is a new house) €60. Fee on copy folio and map €25. Fee on cert. of charge\counterpart mortgage €6. Total €591.

Other possible outlays include €25 on each land registry discharge of a prior mortgage (if any) though these would normally be paid by the vendor. However, if they were not, for some reason, paid, then they might have made their way onto the bill.

Finally, you could have a mixed title - partly Land Registry and partly Registry of Deeds - in which case two sets of registration fees would be incurred. i.e. as per above plus an additional circa €100 - €132. The high search fees of €300 would be consistent with having two do searches on two titles. But the round sum is odd, unless the original poster was simply rounding off when giving details.

In short, it is unlikely, but possible, that the registration fee could have reached close to €800

The Land Registry do not give receipts, but it is still a simple matter to ask what was actually incurred and be given detailed particulars. Most solicitors would itemise the costs on their bill.