Hi there.

We bought our first house in 2007 and we are now thinking of moving.

What sort of costs/fees are involved in the buying/selling process?

Its a bit of a spur of the moment thing as a house we really like has come up for sale and as such we havent got any money set aside for the fees etc.

Is it possible to use equity from the sale of our house to cover the fees etc?

How does the remortgage process work?

The house we have seen is £165k before negotiation. not sure of the value on ours but the house opposite which is the same layout etc went for £152 2 months ago and another on the close went for £155 4 months ago with a garage.

I made a cursory call to the estate agent we used to rent ours through and they said they would be able to sell for between £145 and £150 but that was a couple of months ago.

Any help/info would be greatly appreciated. !

Estate agent fees
Solicitors fees
Surveys
Mortgage fees
Removal fees
Stamp duty

They will all vary, I’d say you’ll be looking at £6-8k all in.

Solicitors will be about £1000ish all in for the buy and sell process (at those prices)
Stamp duty on the buy is 1% – £1600ish
Moving costs….
Deposit….

I’m looking to buy/sell, and figures it’s going to be about £13k just in costs. Ar$e…

DrP

From memory

1% stamp duty

1 to 3 % estate agents fees

several hundred pounds solicitor fees

removal van several hundred to thousands depending on

Our last move I think cost £7000

mortgage nothing to thousands depending on deal

survey free to lots of hundreds

If you have plenty of equity yes I think you can release some

I sound a bit naive with all this but to be honest I have no idea about it all !

If you sell/buy do you pay off the origianl mortgage and then start a new one or just extend the current one?

If you do pay it off do you get it at a cheaper amount than you owe like a loan?

Oh year, estate agent fees for the sale…
MOrtgage arrangement fees…
Surveys…

Forgot those

DrP

EDIT:

I sound a bit naive with all this but to be honest I have no idea about it all !

If you sell/buy do you pay off the origianl mortgage and then start a new one or just extend the current one?
Either – speak to your current mortgage lender.

Wife just sold a flat for £130k. Estate agents fees were £2400 inc VAT flat fee

There are some good guides and calculators on the nationwide site.

Remember ea fees are negotiable and to add vat
Get at least 3 quotes on conveyancing as that will give you legal fees plus search costs etc

We moved in November and I recall the fees were

Agents Fees – 1%
Solicitors Fees about £500 for selling and £1200 for buying. (that includes the searches etc)
Removal Fees about £700 (1 lorry, 2 men from 8am to 6pm)
Stamp duty 1%

We used to equity in our house to fund the deposit on the new one plus all the fees.

I think we only had to pay the solicitors about £300 up front for the searches before completion.

If you have seen one you like, it is worth considering using the same agent to sell yours through. Our agent sold all the houses in the chain and worked hard to keep it together when it was about to fall apart. I’m sure they had a good bonus that day!

If buying under the £250k threshold, maybe £15k.

I think our solicitor must have seen up coming; sure the total solicitor fees were over £3k.
I think the total ‘costs’ to move for us a few years ago were around £7k.

re agent fees I sold via housesimple (195 + vat) – not throwaway money but worth a punt in savings was mho (esp in the sunny SE) and it worked for me – certainly I would haggle with agent (esp if buying/selling)

Can you move with some mates and a hired transit Luton….

or could you sell/move into mumsetc/buy, that ime eases the pain a lot and if really sold it can give you the edge as a cash buyer.

stumpy01 if the solicitors fees were £3k and assuming a straight forward transaction that was excessive.

Check your invoice and quote it would normally break down as

profit costs £x

local authority search £Y
mining search or any regional variation£Z
land registry search £xx
stamp duty £YY
vat £zz
bank transfer fees £XXX
Total £a lot
only profit costs go to the solicitor.

I also had a client complain when I sent them a completion statement showing the funds I needed to complete the transaction. Their compliant was that the amount I needed from them did not match the quote I gave for my costs even though the completion statement clearly stated it included paying off their old mortgage and their estate agents.

Most of the solictors we spoke to gave the fee’s for searches etc, then their fees were a percentage of the house cost for both selling and buying, rather than a set fee. We had an issue as our mortgage was with Santander, and the original solicitors we were going to use weren’t on their approved panel, so we had to change solicitors.

I’ve just remembered the only other fee we paid was for the survey on the house. We decided to pay extra for the house buyers report rather than the standard survey that Santander wanted to do.

I’m looking to buy/sell, and figures it’s going to be about £13k just in costs. Ar$e…

My last move I paid that in Stamp Duty alone 😯

It really hurts, paying tax with money I’ve been taxed on thoroughly. It’s not even particularly difficult to hit those sorts of figures in the south, if prioritise your home in your family spending.

One tip – try not to get in a position where you have to put goods in storage – be prepared to be flexible in exchange/completion.

My buyer dicked me around just before completion, probably just willy waving and empty threats but I really wanted it to go through – so I bit my lip and took the hit – effectively cost me around £800, but more worrying was the week or so we were effectively homeless with a young child, as we couldn’t complete on the new place on the same date. All worked out in the end though.

If buying under the £250k threshold, maybe £15k.

Our last move earlier this year was above £250k threshold and the total cost came under £15k.

Estate agents was 1% plus VAT, negotiated deal as buying and selling through them. As well as a good rate this has the advantage of them a having a much bigger vested interest in the chain completing as mentioned above.

Removals a little under £1k including some packing

Solicitors a little over £1k buying and selling

Survey – independently engaged by us £300

Survey – valuation only by the bank £400 🙁

Plus the rest like Stamp Duty, Mortgage fees, valium, etc

Find a good local mortgage advisor.

Most will not charge you a fee but will be paid out of the commission from your new mortgage.

They should be happy to walk you through the process and will probably know a good solicitor too.

You can of course arrange all this through your estate agent but they invariably charge for this advice.

Just a note ref. Estate agents, my mrs is one (yeah yeah I know) its a very competitive business and its worth haggling on the fee and shop around.

we’ve recently moved. our house val £165k – estate agents fees were fixed at £2k inc Vat.

Solicitors fee’s were approx. £800 to sell and approx. £1350 to buy – they will probably want some money on account to cover surveys etc – ours was £300 upfront, obviously knocked off the final bill etc

moving fee’s were £720 – incl 3 men and large wagon.

survey – was £475 for a home buyers survey on the new property

STDLT 1% upto £250k I think

with our existing mortgage we were still within the 5yr fixed period, and we stayed with the same mortgage company to avoid paying the early repayment fee’s (circa £5k) we still managed to get a fairly competitive rate on our new mortgage

In terms of ‘hiding’ the fees in with the new mortage, it’d probably depend how much equity you’ve got in your old house.

If, for assumptions only and rounding numbers up etc, you could sell your house for £150k and you owe £100k, and you’re buying a £200k house there’s nothing stopping you just using £40k of your equity and getting a new £160k mortgage out and splashing out on a new bike paying fees etc with the rest of the £10k…

Your equity is yours to spend as you wish, there are no rules that require you to spend it on your new house. Indeed it’s worth considering if you might need a new boiler/extension/furniture.

But bear in mind, alll you’re doing though is transferring those costs into a long mortgage period. My sister was just about to remortgage to buy a new car when I pointed out she’d be paying for it for 25 years.

Thanks for the replies.
We have a tenant who would be moving with the house and her family have already said they will move her stuff so that saves us a bit on the removals.

I guess I need to get our house properly valued really to see what equity we could have to see if its all viable or not !

if you have been renting it out then are you not also liable for capitol gains tax ?

you will need to factor this into your costs also

The house we have seen is £165k before negotiation.

wow – a house for £165k – you obviously don’t live anywhere near the Southeast! ;o)

I think everyone above me has pretty much covered off what I was going to say.

Moving costs can be handled a lot cheaper if you want to put some effort in. Big van, some mates, sorted. We moved house with a van, myself and my son because friends and family let us down so we just moved everything ourselves. Took us three days and was hard work but we did it all.

It taught me that you can’t rely on anyone but yourself and taught my son that despite him thinking he’s a tough guy, his old dad can carry on lifting washing machines and things long after his young muscles have given up. 😉

Oh, and yes, you can use your mortgage to cover all your fees if you want but as above, you’ll be paying for it for 25 years so you should avoid where possible. If you think you can clear things quickly, pay for as much as you can on a 0% credit card and then clear it sharpish. We did that almost exactly a year ago and just finished paying it all off last month. Hard work but it feels good.