£400,000 House Sale Estimate

The total legal costs associated with selling a house for £400,000 are likely to be £1,603.20. This includes:

  • Our fees                    £1,300.00
  • VAT on our fees                    £260.00
  • Disbursements
  • Bank transfer costs                     £36.00
  • Land Registry Office Copies £7.20

TOTAL LEGAL COSTS        £1603.20

Additional Costs

  • Estate Agents Commission – If you are selling through an estate agent they will send us the invoice for their commission, which we will pay from the sale proceeds. Most estate agents charge between 1% and 2% plus VAT of the sale price as commission. This means for a house sale of £400,000 1% commission will be an additional £4,800.
  • Indemnity Insurance – There are often occasions when the purchaser will require an insurance indemnity policy to be put into place by the seller to cover, for example, work done to a property which does not have the requisite Planning Permission or Building Regulations consent. A policy to cover this type of risk may cost approximately £250.

Services included in our fees estimates:

  • Carrying out identity checks as required by the Money Laundering Regulations;
  • Advising you throughout;
  • Obtaining title documentation (both in the form of physical deeds that you pass to us and by downloading copies of the register entries, title plan and supporting deeds from the Land Registry);
  • Obtaining completed protocol forms from you together with any supporting information;
  • Preparing a draft contract package for the buyer’s conveyancers;
  • Replying to pre-contract enquiries raised by the buyer’s solicitors (assuming that such correspondence does not become unusually protracted);
  • Obtaining your signature to the contract as approved;
  • Exchanging contracts with the buyer’s conveyancers; proving your title to the property and approving the appropriate documents and ensuring that all are appropriately executed;
  • Completing the matter and accounting to you for the balance of the sale proceeds;
  • And, where there is a mortgage secured against the property you are selling our responsibilities include:
    • paying off the mortgage (including agreeing redemption figures with your lender);
    • obtaining evidence of the redemption and forwarding the same to the buyer’s conveyancers.

Services not included in our fees estimates:

  • Providing you with any advice on the tax consequences of the transaction whether for you or for any third party;
  • Preparing statutory declarations or statements of truth or deeds of variations or dealing with a retention.

Please speak to us if you require our assistance with any of the above.

Procedure and Timescales

 There are two important dates in the conveyancing transaction. The first is what is known as the exchange of contracts and the second is completion.

Briefly, the exchange of contracts is the moment during the transaction when the sellers and the buyers become legally committed to concluding the deal. Until that time either party can withdraw. Once the contracts have been exchanged neither party can legally withdraw from the deal without severe financial penalties.

Completion is the date on which the buyers are entitled to have possession of the property, and the date on which the sellers are entitled to receive the money and must vacate the property.

The time between exchange and completion is agreed between the parties to the transaction and the chain of transactions, if there is one and is generally between one and four weeks.

  •  Up to Exchange of Contracts – We will obtain your certificate of ownership (title deeds) from you or your Building Society, Bank or the Land Registry and will also ask you to provide a large amount of information about the property. We will then prepare a contract for the sale of the property and will send the buyers’ solicitor a comprehensive bundle of information about the property, comprising proof of ownership, a list of contents to be included in the sale and a host of other points relating to boundaries, neighbours, planning, rights of way etc.
  • In the meantime, the buyers will be applying for their mortgage and having a survey done. The buyers’ solicitor will be checking the information provided by us and will also be carrying out searches on the property.
  • We will receive enquiries on the contract paperwork from the buyers’ solicitor which we will take your instructions on, assisting you with any legal matters raised. We will prepare replies to the enquiries and provide to the buyers’ solicitor.
  • The Exchange of Contracts – Once the buyers’ solicitor is satisfied that the property has a good and marketable title, we will arrange an exchange of contracts, at which stage the date for moving (the completion date) is inserted in the contract so that both the seller and the buyers are then legally committed to that date.
  •  Between Exchange of Contracts and Completion – Following the exchange of contracts all parties involved are aware that the matter is to be completed on a particular day. We will request a redemption statement from the lender (if any) and an invoice from the agents. We will prepare a completion statement setting out the sum due to the sellers on completion.
  •  Completion – When we receive the balance of purchase monies from the buyer’s solicitor, we will authorise you or your estate agents to hand over the keys to the buyers. We will also pay off any mortgages on the property and provide proof of payment to the buyer’s solicitors. We will send the legal transfer document, together with all the other relevant documents for the property to the buyer’s solicitors. We will send the net sale proceeds to your designated account.

See also our   Estimate for £400,000 house purchase      and  our   Costs Table , which  gives an indication of our fees for different types and values of transaction.

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