The whole process of buying and selling houses can be very expensive and is additional stretch on people’s finances. Two of the biggest costs are conveyancing and tax which can add thousands of pounds on both the buyers and sellers bills.
Recent figures show that the average cost of a conveyancing service for someone purchasing a property is now over one thousand pounds, whereas the costs for a seller is around five hundred pounds. If you add these costs up with stamp duty, and mortgage fees buyers especially are going to find the bills can get very expensive. In addition these figures can be made worse if a sale does not actually go through. Many people start the conveyancing process for buyers and sellers to back down at the last minute and change their minds. Often there are no refunds policies for fees on properties which fail to complete leaving many people out of pocket. It is estimated that the UK population spend around £98 million pounds every year on property sales that fail to actually complete.
Avoiding this situation can be difficult as it is hard to second guess whether or not the buyer or seller is completely committed to the deal. However there are a few things that can be done to protect your finances against an uncompleted sale. One such thing is to negotiate a fixed fee with the solicitors for the conveyancing work. This means that you know the costs up front and they are unlikely to spiral out of control, which could happen if you are paying by the hour. Some solicitors firms do advertise a flat rate for carrying out conveyancing work, which can be an attractive alternative, but you do need to remember that the fee does not include additional charges such as the fee to transfer money from your bank to your lender.
Trying to reduce the costs of moving house can be tricky but there are some ways that it can done. Typically it has always been the buyers that stump up the majority of the moving costs, but that changed last year with the introduction of the Home Information Packs. This pack carries out some of the searches that previously buyers had to pay for when purchasing a property. However not all mortgage lenders will accept the results of these searches and will demand that they own searches are carried. There is little that can be done in this situation so buyers should make sure if they know whether this will be the case or not before they commit to that lender.
Using an online conveyancing is another way which could save both buyers and sellers money. Online conveyancing works by handling the case through email and post, which costs down on expensive face to face time. However you need to make sure that the lawyers are insured in case anything goes wrong, otherwise you could find yourself having to fork out for the service for a second time somewhere else. In addition you could try completing some of the conveyancing work yourself in order to bring the costs down. You can purchase the forms from a number of sources, but again you need to be careful of getting it right because you will be liable for any mistakes.
Using some of the methods listed above will help reduce conveyancing costs but whilst we continue to have the same legal system, costs for moving house in the UK will always be high
