I don't mind you disagreeing with me! We would not have a useful, and entertaining, NG if everyone thought the same. The problem is that conveyancing seems easy and solicitors fees seems high. As well as it being an insurance the amount of aggravation it saves is worthwhile as well.
That depends on what your solicitor missed when you were buying the place...
Or personal recommendation. Which is how we found the one I mentioned above.
Oh, by the way... In that one small snippet, you reveal SO much about exactly why you should never, ever, ever be allowed to get anywhere near something with so many hideously expensive and complicated potential pitfalls.
Spot on.
On Thursday 24 October 2013 15:40 Peter Crosland wrote in uk.d-i-y:
Very gracious of you sir!
What I meant of course was your advice usually marks a note of extreme caution. I'm more of a middle of the road person - unless the impact of failure is high (cg russian roulette) in which case for the money, a solicitor's fees IMO are well worthwhile.
Unlike Estate Agents who really seem to do bugger all for a £3-6k fee.
:)
And that shows that you know very little about property transactions.
(Incidentally, my advice was to use a solicitor, but not for all the spurious reasons pronounced by others.)
Ahh, so "owned outright" means something else on planet idiot?
The flat is in a buidling with common services - which will need checking. Now, a freehold detatched building would be another matter.
The proposed fee is exorbitant. You should, be able to get it for far less by shopping around. Many solicitors offer fixed fee for doing the work. As for the pitfalls of DIYing it they are numerous. The fact that you feel the need for guidance and information suggests you could fall into some of them. I have no way of knowing anything else because I have no knowledge of your expertise.
There are firms online that do nothing else and IME they are very good at it too. I can vouch for
Why would I, as the SELLER, need to check the services? It's an ex-local authority ground floor flat in a 2 storey block of eight; the council is responsible for all the building maintenance.
We certainly agree on one thing: the reasonableness of the quoted fee. As a consultant engineer I know that one of the early steps in a project is to gather information, especially earlier solutions and the experiences of others, in an attempt to reduce the unknown unknowns - hence my question on this DIY group. I've bought and sold before but that was many years ago so I was hoping to find some DIYers with recent experience or who could suggest an up-to-date book on the subject.
Thanks! Their fees quote was £570 + expenses ... still seems OTT to me for the small amount of work involved
A leasehold property, almost certainly with a restrictive covenant in the title covering who you can sell it to for a period of up to (normally) ten years after the original sale by the council, as well as many wayleave agreements and such, with the council as the building manager.
From experience of a couple of non-standard property sales, I would
*strongly* suggest you use a solicitor. They will know the correct ways to phrase the answers sought by the purchaser's solicitor, and the transaction may well fail to complete if the right answers are not given. A good solicitor will be well worth the cost in this case.
As you've now told us that it's a leasehold property with many covenants and restrictions,(All ex-council properties are similar in this respect, and flats in blocks have more problems with the title than houses) the work involved isn't actually all that small.
I'm very grateful for people taking the time to reply but I'm surprised by the negativity. Either this isn't the simple clerical task that I believe (in which case I will fall into a dragon pit and eat any humble pie that therein lies) or the conveyancing world have done any equally good FUD-promotion job to that of the Corgies.
Why would the answers relating to leasehold aspects be any different to when I bought the flat?
Leasehold was mentioned at the outset, but as I have all the documentation from when I bought the flat I don't (yet) understand why selling is more than a clerical task ... ?
For a lot of properties, it is a simple clerical task. The trick is to know which properties aren't suitable for home conveyancing. A detached house with well defined garden boundaries and no wires running across the top are easy. Flats, which have restrictive covenants and are leasehold aren't.
They're probably not, but your solicitor should have been asking some
*very* searching questions when the sale went through. If they didn't, then you may well get bitten by quite a few nasties. For instance, if you bought it directly from the council, your solicitor may not have told you about a covenant that says for the first few years, you must give the council or some other charitable organisation first refusal. There will also be restrictions on the use of the property, which don't affect you but may well affect the purchaser.I recently bought an ex-council house, and had to buy many insurance policies for things like chancery fees and other indemnities against things which weren't explicitly mentioned in the title, but are common. There were at least four wayleave agreements in place, too. At least all the paperwork is now in place to make any later sale easier and cheaper.
I'm being realistic about this, not negative, and any negativity is based on my personal experience of property sales and purchases, only one of which was relatively straightforward.
You've been given good and free advice by many posters based on our own personal experiences. You are free to take or ignore this advice as you wish.
I'm not the one buying your place, and my solicitor would probably strongly recommend that I didn't buy it if you were doing your own conveyancing.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.