What should be included in a Conveyancing Quote?
Whenever you receive a quoted price for a product or service, you rightly expect that your final invoice will match this quote. A quote should be exact, whereas you may reasonably expect an ‘estimate’ to vary from a final bill. The same should be of a Conveyancing quote, but unfortunately this is not always the case.
Strictly speaking, many Conveyancing quotes are in fact therefore estimates. Reading the terms and conditions attached to a Conveyancing instruction, you will see that many Solicitors and Conveyancers will conceal extra fees in the small print. Once even a few of these are added on, your final bill could be over £100 more expensive.
The justification for advertising such a low fee upfront is that this is the ‘basic’ or standard service; but these unscrupulous firms know full well that most Conveyancing transactions will in fact require many so-called extras, such as mortgage or bank transfer fees. Firms will leave out all manner of fees from their quote in an effort to appear cheaper, adding it onto the final bill as though was an unforeseen extra task, much to the surprise and shock of the client! Worse still, the Solicitor may require that this invoice be paid before they can complete.
Getting a Reliable Conveyancing Quote
When you request a Conveyancing quote, make it clear that you want a comprehensive quote including absolutely everything. Ask each firm to break their quote down into its component parts, to be sure that you are comparing genuinely like for like services. Finally, do not rely on a Conveyancing quote which merely claims to be ‘fixed fee’, and do not rely on a phone call or verbal promise from your Solicitor that the Conveyancing quote will be all you pay.
