Your first consideration when selling your house should be estate agency fees. These can vary depending on your property type, market condition and selling schedule. Typical estate agency fees are anywhere between 1% and 3.5%.
When picking your estate agency, watch out for any hidden charges such as photography or marketing. The company is required by law to tell you exactly what is included.
Find out if your fees include listings on property websites and ‘for sale’ signs — both of which will help to drive interest from buyers.
Unlike some agents, Keatons are prepared to consider a tailored fee that suits both parties, such as a tiered fee structure (where the fee varies, depending on the price achieved).
When you’re selling a house, you will also need to hire a solicitor or licensed conveyancer to handle the legal side of the process. The conveyancing process begins once you have had an offer accepted on your home.
Solicitor fees vary depending on the cost of the property and how much work will need to be done.
However, you should expect to pay anything from £535 for a £100,000 property to £910 for a £1million home.
If you’re moving into a new home, it will probably be cheaper to use the same conveyancer for your new and current property.
When you are working out the cost of selling a house, you need to consider removal fees.
Again, these will vary depending on the size of property and your belongings. However, you should expect to pay anywhere between £400 and £1,200 to shift your stuff.
To keep the price down, make sure to get quotes from a number of firms.
If you don’t have a lot to move then you can dramatically reduce your removal costs by hiring a van and doing the heavy lifting yourself.
By law, if you’re selling your house you must provide potential house buyers with an energy performance certificate (EPC). This is a chart that shows how energy efficient your property is.
EPC fees start at around £35 but increase depending on the size of your house. You should be able to organise one through your estate agent.
Money saving tip: Energy performance certificates remain valid for ten years. So if your house was sold in the past decade, you may not have to buy a new one.
The cost of selling a house can come as a nasty surprise to those who aren’t aware of the fees involved.
While we’ve covered the main charges in this article, there are some others that might crop up along the way.
If you want your mail forwarded to your new home, for example, that costs £33.99 for three months. This increases depending on how long you want the redirection to last. If you’re heading overseas, the fee will increase as well.
While the cost of selling a house might seem expensive, remember that nearly all the fees here can be negotiated. Make sure to haggle whenever you speak to different parties — you could end up saving a pretty penny!
Check out our FAQ for Sellers to find out more about how Keatons can help you sell your home.