RoShamBo

iTrader: (1)

Hi

Can anyone tell me what costs are involved in moving (bar the house cost !)

Stamp Duty (3% over 250k ??)
Legal Fees
Estate Agents fees.

etc etc.

Trying to gauge an idea of how much its gonna cost me.

Thanks

Ro.

MarkO

We're moving at the moment. So I'll help...

Estate agents fees - usually marketed at 2.5% of the property value you're selling. However, not many people actually pay that - you should be able to knock 'em down to 1.5% or lower. We're paying 1.25%, but I know people who've got it lower than 1%. If they won't budge, offer to do some or all of the viewings yourself.

Stamp Duty - payable on the house you're buying. It's 1% if the property's worth < 250k, 3% if it's more than that. There are higher duty levels too, but if your house is in the next bracket above 3%, you probably won't care about the fees.

Bear in mind that if your property is on the borderline (e.g., 255k) you can drop the price and then charge your vendors, say, 6k for some extras (fixtures and fittings), thereby saving 2% stamp duty. However, the closer you are to the threshold, the more likely the IR will check up on you.

Moving fees - depends on the distance and the amount of stuff. When we moved from our previous 2-bed house to our current house (Surrey to Kent) Pickfords charged us £800 or so for the priviledge. It was a superb service, and I'd recommend 'em.

We're currently in the process of moving from Kent to the Scottish Borders, and have had quotes from both Pickfords & Bishops Move - the cost was in the region of £1,800 - £1,900. However, you have to bear in mind that

a) it's a 4-bed house with a lot of stuff in it

b) the move is a 3-day one, because of the distance. First day they pack, the second day they travel up and unpack, and then you have to pay for an extra day whilst they drive down again.

c) that includes them packing the fragile stuff themselves (they won't insure against breakages unless they pack it themselves).

Other stuff - You must also remember that you'll have to pay solicitor's conveyancing fees (around £500 if you're just selling a place, probably nearer a grand if you're selling somewhere too). And of course there's the cost of the survey too, which will range from £400 or so to a mortgage valuation (although some lenders will pay for this themselves) to about £1,000 for a full structural survey.

To give you an idea of the overall costs, our move will come in at about £8,000, and that doesn't include any stamp duty (since we're initially moving to rented accommodation, rather than buying somewhere immediately).

It's not cheap!

Hope this helps....

[Edited by MarkO - 10/11/2002 9:28:03 AM]

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

Our total costs for buying and selling will total around £3.5k.
We did our own removals and got a fixed estate agent fee of £800 + vat and a fixed fee from the solicitor too. As Mark says (and I'm sure you know) it ain't cheap and stamp duty is a killer

Regacy

Moving at the end of the month.
Total bill £23,500
Stamp duty
Agent’s fees
Moving fees
Just like having a big bonfire of fivers
Only less satisfying
r

ProperCharlie

It put a right downer on me when I discovered that the place I want to buy is in the 3% stamp duty bracket. I didn't know stamp duty went up on a sliding scale. What a f**king rip off - house prices have gone up loads so we (the chancellor) will sit back and take 9k off you for doing absolutely nothing.

Oh well, rant over.

Should just stay in my nice little flat I guess

carl

http://www.assertahome.com/jsp/howto...vingbudget.jsp

Tiggs

in surrey you should be able to get 1% estate agent fees due to the competiotion (no one in Reading pays more than 1%)

T

dsmith

which is fine so long as you never want to move back......

MarkO

Hmmmm. Tricky decision. Do I:

Stay in the uncrowded, less expensive, friendlier and more relaxed Scottish borders, with my mortgage mostly paid off but a house that would cost 3/4 of a million down south. Not to mention the lower cost of living, beautiful scenery, better air quality, wonderful water and improved quality of life.

Or do I move back down to the SE again, which is overcrowded, smelly, unfriendly, dirty, and ludicrously expensive to buy so much as a parking space. Not to mention the ****ty hard water, polluted air and the massively inflated costs of living.

Can't see it's going to be a difficult decision.

And besides, if the rumours about the new rail link from the Borders into Edinburgh which they're talking about building in the next 3-4 years are true, then our property will massively inflate in value after we move there, making it easy to move back down South if we chose to do so.

dsmith

Not suggesting you will, but I have little idea what I'll be thinking in 15 years time.

Its nothing new - my parents were caught 30 years ago moved from south to north, bought a huge house from proceeds of selling smaller house. Had to move south 5 years later to find work and ended up in smaller place than they'd been in 5 years ago.

by the way you dont have to move to Scotlnad to get away from "overcrowding and polluted air". View from house in Suffolk is great - though a few mountains would certainly improve it
Deano

MarkO

Very true. But I guess that could happen (to a certain extent) anywhere.

Hopefully, though, with a bit of luck it shouldn't be an issue - Edinburgh's a massive financial centre, so there's always likely to be IT work there. Plus there's always the option of flying down and working in London if work gets short in Scotland.

RoShamBo

iTrader: (1)

MarkO, DJ...& everyone else....that info is fantastic - cheers guys, exactly what I was after........bloody stamp duty !!

Ro.


[Edited by RoShamBo - 10/11/2002 9:42:05 AM]

MarkO

Gulp!

The only thing that makes our costs bearable is the fact that we've made so much money on our house in the last 3 years, effectively the poor b@stards buying it are the ones who are paying the fees. They're also very kindly paying for my Jaguar too, not to mention the 80k-odd cash 'gift' they're passing on to me.


[Edited by MarkO - 10/11/2002 9:44:10 AM]