Our general quotation terms are given in good faith based upon the limited information that both you and we can provide at such an early stage.

All quotations, whether in writing or over the Internet, are given on the basis that your transaction will involve the usual amount of solicitor's work. If an abnormal amount of work is undertaken by us then we reserve the right to levy an additional charge for the extra work done. If such an extra charge is likely we shall notify you in advance and you will have the right to cancel our retainer and just pay for the work done to date.

If your transaction does not proceed for any reason then we shall charge you for the work done to date.

CONVEYANCING QUOTATION TERMS

Certain factors that are not known now might affect the figure we would charge. This is particularly true of purchases but could affect sales too. This could, for example, be the location or type of property, changes in third party charges (e.g. local search fees, stamp duty), whether the property is registered or not and so on.

Once you have decided on the property you are buying please contact us again and we shall be happy to confirm our exact charges in writing.

In addition to quoting our own fees, we have done our best to provide an accurate prediction of the other expenses involved in a typical house sale or purchase. We call these "disbursements" and we make no profit out of them. We charge you whatever the relevant authority charge us. These disbursements are things like stamp duty, VAT, land registry fees, searches and so on. These are outside of our control and may change at any the time. You will be liable to pay the figure that is actually in force at the time the expense is incurred. Please also note that different areas of the country charge different fees for local and landfill searches. We have given you an average figure for this. Whatever these charges are they will be exactly the same whichever solicitor you use.

Some areas of the country may require additional searches to be done. For instance there are a number of areas where mining searches need to be done, particularly in South Wales, Cornwall and Northamptonshire.

Similarly, leasehold or commonhold properties, particularly flats and maisonettes, usually require extra fees to be paid to the landlord for registering the change of ownership of the lease. Please also note that you may be required to pay to the landlord or the outgoing owner an apportionment of rent and/or service charge before you move in. If this is likely to apply to the property that you intend to buy please contact us and we shall explain it further.

Please also note that where appropriate we may use third party agencies to undertake some searches (e.g. electronic searches via NLIS, Landmark). If we do, the search fees will usually be slightly different from the quoted fee. The difference is rarely more than a few pounds. You will be charged the fee we actually have to pay ourselves, we make no profit from searches.