Residential Property Costs Information

We make sure our pricing is clear and transparent in line with the SRA Transparency Rules. Our quote, will set out the legal fees and any disbursements you will need to pay, based on the information you provide to us.

Our conveyancing fees start from £650 plus VAT.   The average legal fee for a freehold sale or purchase at £250,000 with no complications is in the region of £925 plus VAT.   Until we investigate the legal title it is only possible to provide an estimate of costs, but ordinarily our fixed fees will not change unless the legal title is significantly more involved than we could have known at the outset.  The average fee for a new mortgage or re-mortgage is £650 plus VAT.

We will include disbursements within the quote and these commonly include the following:

• Local, water and drainage and environmental searches – £210;
• ID verification fee – £30 per person including VAT;
• Land Registry fee – The fee is determined by the value of the property you are purchasing;
• Stamp Duty fee – The fee is determined by the value of the property you are purchasing/transferring and your personal circumstances .  You may find this link useful to calculate your liability to be paid on completion.
• There is an additional fee of £300 for leasehold properties, this will be added to our legal fee.
• If you are purchasing a new build property, there will be an additional fee of £300 plus VAT.

Fees for dealing with electronic money transfers and dealing with the submission of your Stamp Duty land transaction return will be shown on the quote you receive.

For more information on our range of residential and commercial property conveyancing services please visit our property section, or call 01603 620508 to speak to our property teams.

Residential sales and purchases – factors that could affect your legal fee

If during the transaction something of a legal nature is encountered that was unknown at the time we provided our quote, which leads to additional legal work, we will charge an additional fee. Our additional charges are transparent and we set the most obvious scenarios out in writing with our terms of business. Some examples are set out below:

• Declaration of Trust Deed;
• Transfer of part of a piece of land;
• Dealing with a leasehold transaction;
• Additional work required by specialist mortgage lending;
• New build/Help to Buy schemes;
• Dealing with a shared ownership sale or purchase;
• Statutory Declaration drafting;
• Drafting an Assured Shorthold Tenancy agreement;
• Handling an equity release mortgage;
• Appointment of an attorney or new trustee.

Our additional charges

If additional costs are incurred, we will confirm the additional fees with you. We take great care to ensure that the fees are reasonable, competitive and in-line with the local market.

Transparency

We do everything we can to ensure that the quote we provide at the outset of your residential transaction is as accurate as possible. We base our quotes on the information you provide, so the more detail you can give about your property and circumstances the better. If you are unsure of any aspect of your transaction, or you need an explanation of what might be considered outside of a standard sale or purchase, please do ask – we would be happy to answer your questions.

We care

Client care and quality service is important to us, and we are proud to hold both the Lexcel and Customer Service Excellence Quality Mark national accreditation.

We like to communicate with our clients directly. It’s not about the cheapest quote, you get what you pay for and we understand service and efficiency is what will see you smoothly through your moving experience.

We care what our clients say and how they feel about their experience with us.

If you have any questions before instructing Fosters, we will be happy to help.