Hidden Cost

When you choose your finance company ensure that you ask for details of all charges.

If you ask what their charges are, they sometimes only tell you what the bank application or processing costs are and omit to tell you about the compulsory government charges. Some banks and finance companies to not do their own legal work (preparing mortgages and attending to settlement) and employ another Solicitor to do this work on their behalf. If this is the case, their costs are usually significantly lower than other institutions, but you will need to pay the legal fees yourself for mortgage preparation directly to the Solicitor who they employ. This cost is in addition to the costs of the Solicitor that you choose to do the conveyance on your behalf.

Ensure that you ask your finance company if their organisation prepares their own mortgage documents and, if not, what the legal costs will be for their Solicitors to provide that service.

If you are looking for a Solicitor to act for you we believe you should avoid the following:

• "Bait" quotes. Why is the price so low? What don't they do to keep the price down?
• Low quotes for searches. This is an investment - make sure that all relevant searches are carried out to ensure that you are getting value for money! A missed search may mean you will acquire a property worth dramatically less than the purchase price because of some hidden feature of the property that you didn't know about and which may allow you to terminate the contract.
• Firms who limit the types of searches they undertake (to keep the search quote low).
  

For more information contact us.