The Solicitors Regulatory Authority, the body which regulates law firms, require us to provide you with information on our costs in relation to certain legal services which we provide. This is so that you have the information you need to make an informed choice of legal service provider, and an understanding as to what the total cost of that service may be.
One such legal service is the sale, purchase and mortgage of residential property.
The fees which we charge for residential conveyancing depend on a wide variety of factors including but not limited to whether the transaction is a sale or purchase and whether it is a flat or a house.
We have provided information on the potential costs for sales, purchases and re-mortgages and listed the factors which may cause those costs to increase. However, fees will vary from property to property and can on occasion be significantly more than the ranges given. We can give you an accurate figure once we have specific information about the property including having sight of the relevant documentation.
This page details our pricing structure for mortgages and remortgages.
If you are taking out a mortgage on your property or changing your existing mortgage lender, we can undertake the legal work on your behalf. We will also, in most cases, be acting for your mortgage lender.
The basic legal fee you will pay for a mortgage or remortgage is based on the mortgage amount and any specific circumstances. The basic legal fee, as shown in Table 1 below, is determined by a sliding scale based on mortgage amount. The higher the amount, the higher that basic fee will be. This is due to the amount of risk attached to higher loan amounts. The specific circumstances are shown in table 2 and disbursements in table 3
| Mortgage amount | Fee Range excl VAT | Fee Range incl VAT charged at 20% |
| Up to £500,000 | £550 | £660 |
| Over £500,000 | £750 | £900 |
For mortgage amounts over £1 million our fee will increase by £250 plus VAT (£300 including VAT) for every additional £100,000 of borrowing or part thereof.
We will charge additional fees (on top of the fees referred to above) for each of the following specific circumstances:
| Circumstance | Fee excl VAT | Fee incl VAT charged at 20% |
| A Leasehold Flat | £1250 | £1500 |
| Where the title to the property is not registered at the Land Registry | £300 | £420 |
| A Shared Ownership purchase (where you currently own a share in a property and the landlord owns the other share) | £750 | £900 |
| Property has Solar Panels owned outright | £200 | £240 |
| Property has Solar Panels (panels leased) | £500 | £600 |
| Freehold and leasehold property which is subject to a management company | £250 | £300 |
| Deed of Variation | £500 | £100 |
| Mortgage or remortgage by a Company | £700 | £840 |
| Redemption of a Help to Buy equity loan | £400 | £480 |
Disbursements: These are cost relating to your matter that are payable to 3rd parties
| Disbursement | Cost excluding VAT | Cost including VAT charged at 20% |
| Copies of the register of title and plan (per title number) (obtained through our system search provider and includes their administration fee of £1.00 (plus VAT)) | £14.00 | £16.80 |
| Copies of documents referred to in the register of title (per document) (obtained through our system search provider and includes their administration fee of £0.50p (plus VAT)) | £7.00 | £8.40 |
| Local Authority Search | * | |
| Drainage Search | ** | |
| Environmental Search (based on a Groundsure Homebuyers Report)
Environmental search (based on a Groundsure Avista Report – includes a Cheshire Salt Search and a Coal Mining Search where these are needed) |
From £80
From £120.00 |
From £96.00
From £144.00 |
| Coal Mining Search
To read more about Coal Mining Searches visit the Groundsure website by clicking here.
|
From £40.00 | From £48.00 |
| Cheshire Salt Search
To read more about Cheshire Salt Searches visit the Groundsure website by clicking here. |
From £33 | From £39.60 |
| Index Map Search via Land Registry Portal | £8.00 | £9.60 |
| Land Registry Search per title via Land Registry Portal | £7.00 | £8.40 |
| Bankruptcy Search per person via Land Registry Portal | £6.00 | £7.20 |
| Land Registry Registration Fee | The Land Registry Fees can be found on the Government website which you can visit by clicking here. | |
| Legl ID check | £14.00 | £16.80 |
| Electronic Money Transfer Fee | £30 | £36.00 |
| For Companies – Filings at Companies House (needed where a company is re-mortgaging)
MR01, MR02, MR04 & MR05 Filings (Per Submission) dealt with through our system search provider and includes their administration fee of £5.50 (plus VAT)) |
£17.50 | £21.00 |
| Digital Land Registration Fee | £5.00 | £6.00 |
| Sign It (powered by Docusign – per parcel) | £2.00 | £2.40 |
| Enhanced VOF (Verification of Funds) – (per party) | £4.00 | £4.80 |
| Questionnaire (inc covering documents for signing) – (per person) | £6.50 | £7.80 |
* Local Authority Searches: The price of a local authority search is set by the relevant local authority. Fees can range from £75 – £200 plus VAT at 20% and we can give you a specific cost once we know which local authority the property falls within.
** Drainage Search: The price of a drainage search is set by the relevant service provider. Fees range from £40 – £100 plus VAT at 20% and we can give you a specific cost once we know which provider services the property.
Your lender may accept a personal search bundle. This includes the Local Authority Search, Environmental Search and relevant mining searches. These bundles are often cheaper over all than the individual searches. We will advise you on whether this is an option once we know which lender your are using.
Alternatively, if you lender allows it ‘No Search Indemnity Insurance’ may be able to be implemented in place of the above searches (with the exception of the salt search which would still have to be carried out). The cost of such insurance depends on the value of the property and will vary from insurer to insurer. As an example a No Search Indemnity Insurance Policy covering Standard Conveyancing Searches for a property with a value of between £100,001 and £200,000 (lender only cover) is around £56.00. Your local office will provide you with more details once your Lender is known.
Portal Fees: Some mortgage lenders send their mortgage offer to us via an on-line portal and there is a charge to access it. Such charge is typically £35 plus VAT at 20% (£42.00 inclusive of VAT) but depends on the portal provider that the lender uses. We will provide you with details of the fee payable, if any, in our client care letter that we will send to you at the beginning of the transaction.
Where the property is leasehold Notice Of Charge needs to be served under the terms of the lease. The amount payable will be found in the lease.
Our fees assume that:
How long your re-mortgage will take depends on several factors including what specific requirements the lender has, the type of property being re-mortgaged and whether any additional work needs to be undertaken to comply with the lenders mortgage conditions. An average re-mortgage will take between 4 and 8 weeks. Our Residential Property Team will talk you through the procedure and likely timescales in more detail once the specifics of the mortgage are known.
Click here to view the key stages a of a usual remortgage transaction.