Conveyancing Costs

[Dicky99]

I accepted an offer on my flat 10 weeks ago.
Everything that needs to be provided by me has been provided but my cash buyer doesn't seem to be in any rush to complete and I haven't been hassling because I'm struggling to find a property myself. When I asked my solicitor about progress recently he said that the buyers solicitor has come back requesting some "further" information which has already been provided.

That's just background. The query in my mind is if this buyer pulls out at this late stage and I have to put the flat back on the market would I be billed in full by the solicitor for the aborted sale and then commit to a fresh conveyancing transaction going forward?

[Mike4]

I accepted an offer on my flat 10 weeks ago.
Everything that needs to be provided by me has been provided but my cash buyer doesn't seem to be in any rush to complete and I haven't been hassling because I'm struggling to find a property myself. When I asked my solicitor about progress recently he said that the buyers solicitor has come back requesting some "further" information which has already been provided.

That's just background. The query in my mind is if this buyer pulls out at this late stage and I have to put the flat back on the market would I be billed in full by the solicitor for the aborted sale and then commit to a fresh conveyancing transaction going forward?

Broadly yes, but ask them! Some sols will take it on the chin if you find a new buyer and stick with them as the same sol.

Your buyer sounds well worth ditching if you want to get on with the sale, but it sounds as though the delays suit you fine really, while you seek another property. Its well worth finding a way to disconnect your sale from your next purchase if you can, to avoid all this grief and uncertainty.

[Mike4]

Forgot to say the market around here (rural Wiltshire) has died a death the last month or so. Sales agreed are falling out of bed all over the place so if you actually have a buyer willing to proceed (and you might not, hence the delays) hang on to them!

[Lootman]

I accepted an offer on my flat 10 weeks ago. Everything that needs to be provided by me has been provided but my cash buyer doesn't seem to be in any rush to complete

May not be relevant but back in 2007 when I was offloading one of my BTL properties, I had a bidder who offered the full asking price, cash only, which I accepted. Then the buyer really dragged his heels about doing any of his due diligence, and of course spending very little money in the process.

A day or two before exchange he came back to me with a lowball offer, which I rejected, and then he vanished. So it seems that this might be a strategy out there, albeit a sketchy one.

[Mike4]

I accepted an offer on my flat 10 weeks ago. Everything that needs to be provided by me has been provided but my cash buyer doesn't seem to be in any rush to complete

May not be relevant but back in 2007 when I was offloading one of my BTL properties, I had a bidder who offered the full asking price, cash only, which I accepted. Then the buyer really dragged his heels about doing any of his due diligence, and of course spending very little money in the process.

A day or two before exchange he came back to me with a lowball offer, which I rejected, and then he vanished. So it seems that this might be a strategy out there, albeit a sketchy one.

I agree. Never mind about duplicate solicitor bills, this is what's coming in my opinion too.

Prolly worth asking the estate agent what they think. Does this particular buyer have a 'history' of this? Is anyone else interested?

Being brutally cynical given the state of the market right now, might this 'buyer' be someone in the estate agent office?

[Lootman]

May not be relevant but back in 2007 when I was offloading one of my BTL properties, I had a bidder who offered the full asking price, cash only, which I accepted. Then the buyer really dragged his heels about doing any of his due diligence, and of course spending very little money in the process.

A day or two before exchange he came back to me with a lowball offer, which I rejected, and then he vanished. So it seems that this might be a strategy out there, albeit a sketchy one.

I agree. Never mind about duplicate solicitor bills, this is what's coming in my opinion too.

Prolly worth asking the estate agent what they think. Does this particular buyer have a 'history' of this? Is anyone else interested?

Being brutally cynical given the state of the market right now, might this 'buyer' be someone in the estate agent office?

That was the thing, my estate agent vouched for this buyer, otherwise I might have ducked. Needless to say she did not get any more business from me. And I sold the place a few weeks later through someone else.

[mc2fool]

The query in my mind is if this buyer pulls out at this late stage and I have to put the flat back on the market would I be billed in full by the solicitor for the aborted sale and then commit to a fresh conveyancing transaction going forward?

Presumably you don't have a no-sale-no-fee deal (common with online conveyancing shops and rare with "proper" solicitors).

Assuming not, they will bill you for the work done to date but you should get some discount for the next time round as there'll be some things already done. E.g. they'll already have the "protocol" forms from you (TA6, TA7, TA10) which they will (should!) have reviewed and checked. Ditto for the LPE1 and the related stuff they got from your freeholder/landlord/managing agent. And, of course, the client info questionnaire and id stuff and other forms you filled in when you signed up with them.

How much of a discount you'll just have to wait and see ...

[Gerry557]

10 weeks is still pretty fast and 12 is the norm. Maybe you should ask your solicitor to hasten their solicitors to get to the crux of the matter plus get the estate agent on the case. You could ask to speak direct to the buyer.

I was advising someone trying to purchase a property. The seller wanted an 8 week quick sale. He was moving to a new build and my advice was to someone in rented. Whilst 8 weeks is possible it still relies on everyone getting their ducks in a row.

There was obviously signs of progress by the buyer but the 8 week deadline came and went. Then just as it appeared that the deal would be concluded there was a need to amend the mortgage which would cause a weeks delay. The process then seemed to stall with each solicitor blaming the other side.

Fortunately there was some communication that kept things on track. The buyer paying his solicitor a fast track fee, the seller being informed that they were waiting for his solicitor etc.

Again it looked like all ducks were aligned when the seller informed that the boiler was broken and that he would understand if they wanted to delay purchase until after repair but offered to pay for the repair.

I advised still proceeding because he fessed up to begin with and could have sold and claimed it was working at the time. His offer to pay for repair showed good faith.

Hopefully yours is something similar and not a sinister ploy, get the channels open.

[ukmtk]

After my brother read The Conveyancing Fraud many years ago he has invariably done his own conveyancing.
The fraud is that it is typically paralegals who do all the real work and the solicitor just claims the credit.
I have to admit that he has typically been a cash only buyer.
Most of the time he hasn't had a problem though a few solicitors can get a little shirty dealing with non-legal entity.

[vand]

Conveyancing is the butt-end of the legal practice.. technically you don't need to be a solicitor to do convenyancing work. It's pretty mundane stuff - form filling, search requests & checking the reports back, etc.

When we bought our house in 2020 we got a solicitor who was pretty good at a very reasonable rate - when we recommended him to our friends a few months later he had tripled his fee, as had most conveyancers at that time as the market went into frenzy off the back of 1% mortgages. Don't assume that fees reflect quality - that just isn't true, and a lot depends on how much business they are doing at the time. You can get very good service for a reasonable free, and a high fee isn't any guarantee they're better than someone else charging half as much.

[Dicky99]

Forgot to say the market around here (rural Wiltshire) has died a death the last month or so. Sales agreed are falling out of bed all over the place so if you actually have a buyer willing to proceed (and you might not, hence the delays) hang on to them!

It certainly seems to have died a death in the Yorkshire town I'm looking to move to compared to this time last year.

[Dicky99]

I accepted an offer on my flat 10 weeks ago. Everything that needs to be provided by me has been provided but my cash buyer doesn't seem to be in any rush to complete

May not be relevant but back in 2007 when I was offloading one of my BTL properties, I had a bidder who offered the full asking price, cash only, which I accepted. Then the buyer really dragged his heels about doing any of his due diligence, and of course spending very little money in the process.

A day or two before exchange he came back to me with a lowball offer, which I rejected, and then he vanished. So it seems that this might be a strategy out there, albeit a sketchy one.

My buyer is apparently a cash buyer investor. I expected they'd want to get on with it but it has crossed my mind that for a canny investor, accepting their offer could be viewed as a no lose investment which you don't have to pay for until you see which way the market has moved.

[Dicky99]

The query in my mind is if this buyer pulls out at this late stage and I have to put the flat back on the market would I be billed in full by the solicitor for the aborted sale and then commit to a fresh conveyancing transaction going forward?

Presumably you don't have a no-sale-no-fee deal (common with online conveyancing shops and rare with "proper" solicitors).

Assuming not, they will bill you for the work done to date but you should get some discount for the next time round as there'll be some things already done. E.g. they'll already have the "protocol" forms from you (TA6, TA7, TA10) which they will (should!) have reviewed and checked. Ditto for the LPE1 and the related stuff they got from your freeholder/landlord/managing agent. And, of course, the client info questionnaire and id stuff and other forms you filled in when you signed up with them.

How much of a discount you'll just have to wait and see ...

That's what I'd hope for i.e. that there would be some reasonably applied extra costs to pay but with allowance for tasks which don't need to be repeated.
I'm not sure about the no sale no fee clause but since it is a proper solicitor, probably not.