We would be happy to let you know what conveyancing fees we charge: please email us for a detailed quote.
What follows is a summary of the taxes and other fees that we would be paying out on your behalf during the whole conveyancing process – what Solicitors call the “outlays”.
1. Searches: Our service would include reviewing the Contract and title documents, and dealing with any negotiation or queries about the title for you. If you decide to proceed, we would pay an agent to conduct “searches”; these are done to make sure that you don’t accidentally acquire any liabilities that attach to the property, for example if a previous owner had an unpaid debt that was registered as a “judgement mortgage” against the property.
There are a number of different kinds of charges that can attach to a property. We would determine what kinds of searches are required, and then organise them for you so that they take place on the same day that you become the owner of the property. Searches are mostly carried out online, but it may be necessary to send someone to physically search the Registry of Deeds. Once we have determined what searches are needed, we pay a specialist firm of “law searchers” to conduct them. The fees for this would be as follows:
• Registered property, approx €50, or
• Unregistered property, approx €250
If you proceed, we would deal with the transfer of funds to the vendor’s solicitor, and get the documents you need from them. Our work is far from finished at that point; once you are have become the owner, and have got your keys, we would proceed to pay the Stamp Duty for you, and then to deal with registering the change of ownership.
2. Stamp Duty: For a residential property, this is 1% of the purchase price for the first €1 million, and 2% after that. For non-residential property, the rate is 6%. The higher rate, unfortunately, applies not only to “commercial” or “development” property, but also to a site on which you plan to build your residential home.
3. Property Registration Authority fees: When we have paid the Stamp Duty for you, and got the “Stamp Certificate” from the Revenue Commissioners, our next step is to register the change of ownership with the Property Registration Authority of Ireland (PRAI). This usually involves an application to change the name of the registered owner, in which case the fees vary depending on the cost of the property, as follows:
• Up to €50,000 €400
• €50,001 – €200,000 €600
• €200,001 – 400,000 €700
• Greater than €400,000 €800
If you have a mortgage, this will have been provided to us on the basis of our “Undertaking” (a promise) to the bank to register their interest as a “charge” against the property. The fee payable to the PRAI for that is €175.
Most properties in Ireland are “registered”: this means that the old title documents are of historical interest only, and the name of the owners is registered online in a document called a “Folio”. The process of registering properties has been going on for decades, and “first registration” is compulsory now for every property that changes hands. First registration became compulsory in Cork in 2009. A good many older properties in the city are still subject to first registration. If that is the case, we would first register the new title document in the Registry of Deeds, and then go on to make the application for “first registration”. The PRAI fees in that case would be as follows:
• Fee to Registry of Deeds to register mortgage €50, and/or
• Fee to Registry of Deeds to register new title document €50, and
• First registration fee – usually €130, or
• First registration fee – if owner deceased, or deeds missing €500
For more information, please don’t hesitate to get in contact. There is a useful article on the subject here. You may also be interested in this post: What happens when I buy a house? : A step-by-step guide that aims to take the mystery out of “conveyancing”. For our overview on the whole area of property law see this page.
