FEE SCALE

The following scale of fees is inclusive of all legal work required to complete the sale of a standard transaction for single residential property (freehold or leasehold).

A member of our Real Estate Team will be pleased to discuss your requirements.

Legal Fees

As with all legal transactions, fees will vary depending on price and complexity.

As a general rule our base fee will be 0.25% of sale price subject to a minimum of £1,500.00 in relation to freehold sales and £1,750.00 in relation to leasehold sales.

VAT currently at the rate of 20% will be payable on our fees.  Certain disbursements (see below) will also attract VAT at the 20% rate. A member of our Real Estate Team can advise you where we are required to charge VAT.

Please note that if at any stage of a transaction our instructions are changed or a matter arises which adds to the complexity of a transaction then we reserve the right to increase our fees accordingly.

Standard Transactions

The amount of work and therefore time that we may be required to undertake in any legal transaction can vary widely.  Unforeseen circumstances may arise,  perhaps a defect in title or maybe an error in a lease which needs to be rectified; there may be a long and complex chain that needs to be coordinated.  Matters such as these can effect any transaction and therefore take the same outside of our definition of a standard transaction.

Freehold sale / Leasehold sale

There is often considerably more work involved in the sale of a leasehold property (as opposed to the sale of a freehold).   Landlord’s consent may be required for the sale of a leasehold property therefore requiring applications to be made and additional documents (by way of example a Licence to Assign) entered into between landlord, seller and buyer.  For overseas buyers it is not uncommon for landlords to require a Rent Deposit or a Guarantee.

Disbursements

Disbursements are costs related to a legal transaction that are payable to third parties, such as, in the context of a real estate transaction, Land Registry fees or fees payable to a Managing Agent. The payment of these disbursements will be handled by us on your behalf and we will normally require cover for those costs before paying out the same.

We will provide you with a full list of expected disbursements at the commencement of your transaction and keep you informed of any additional disbursements during the course of your sale.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of those disbursements that are commonly incurred during the sale of a residential property:

Usual cost (as at January 2019)

£6.00 plus VAT for copies of title registers and plan (per title).

£35.00 plus VAT.

Landlord or Managing Agent fees vary, typically between £150.00 - £500 plus VAT

How long with the sale take?

This depends upon a number of factors including in particular:-

• The length of any chain of transactions.
• The time it takes to obtain management information.
• The time it takes a buyer to obtain a mortgage offer and the results of relevant property

On average, the process takes around 9-16 weeks from the date of the acceptance of the offer.

Stages of the process

The key stages of a standard transaction:

• Obtaining instructions and providing initial advice.
• Undertaking regulatory checks including checking your identity.
• Preparing and submitting draft contract and supporting documentation.
• Responding to enquiries raised by the buyer’s solicitor.
• Negotiating the contract.
• Obtaining your signature on the agreed sale contract.
• Agreeing a completion date.
• Exchanging contracts and notifying you that this has happened.
• Submitting a completion statement with apportionments of ground rent and service charges (if leasehold) to the buyer’s solicitors.
• Completing the transaction by receiving all monies from the buyer and distributing those monies as required including redeeming any existing mortgage, paying the estate agent and accounting for the net proceeds and/or utilising them in connection with a simultaneous purchase.