"Solicitors fee" when selling... whaaaat?

[nathb]

Hey all, I called my lender today (ING) and enquired about break costs and other fun things involved when selling a property that still has a mortgage attached.

To my delight I discovered that my product had no associated break costs but they did say that I would be charged a deferred establishment fee and discharge fee (both of negligible amount)

However they also said there would be a "solicitors fee." When i asked how much this might be they could not give me any information whatsoever. They couldnt even tell me how many numbers before the decimal point it might be.

Upon reading the brochure it says "Additional legal costs, government charges, valuations or other fees may be payable" which I expect is what the "solicitors fee" they are talking about is.

Does anybody know how much this might cost me?

 

[Propertunity]

Does anybody know how much this might cost me?

Allow around about $1,000 (somewhere between $800 - $1,200) at a guess.

 

[cu@thetop]

I reckon about $300 for Perpetual or Gadens NMS to turn up. hand over release of mortgage and collect your $. Thats the bank fees- your conveyance fees are extra.

 

[Propertunity]

Upon reading the brochure it says "Additional legal costs, government charges, valuations or other fees may be payable" which I expect is what the "solicitors fee" they are talking about is.

No, the "solicitors fee" will only be the "additional legal costs" as cu@thetop explains below.

Just to clarify, the $1,000 or so that I stated in the above post was including this + your conveyance fees.

Cheers,

 

[RumpledElf]

How odd ... I rang the CBA to ask the same thing. I got the usual rather savage deferred establishment and mortgage discharge fees and another fee to change the type of my other loan so I can pay extra to it, since if I sell this house there'll be enough cash after the fact to almost clear loan #2 but it is so no-frills I can't actually do that without paying a fee.

I'm going private sale if I ever manage to sell the house so the conveyancing fees I thought were attached to selling the place, nothing to do with the bank or mortgage. They came to $700, including drawing up a sale contract. MUCH cheaper than the bank fees.

Total fees for me are over 10% of the loan value, which is an argument in favour of just hanging onto this bloody house indefinitely, or at least until the deferred establishment fees go away.

 

[Peter_Tersteeg]

Banks charge a 'discharge fee' which is usually around $300. As suggested it's essentially for the banks solicitor to process the discharge (there is a legal process involved in this).

This fee is charged regardless of how long the loan has been in place.

A 'deferred establishment' fee is charged by most lenders if you discharge the mortgage within 3-5 years of setting the loan up.

All of the fees are disclosed in the loan offer documents.