What costs are involved in buying a house?
Preparing a budget for your purchase is one of the most important parts of the planning process. You need to get a good idea of how much you’ll need to pay. In this post, you’ll get the information you need to know how much the transaction is going to cost.
The costs involved can mainly be separated into three distinct sections:-
- Legal fees
- Government fees
- Surveys and searches
- Legal fees
As the name suggests, this is the fee that your solicitor will charge for doing the work involved. This will usually depend on the value of the property you’re buying. You can expect to pay between €1100 – €3000 for your solicitor’s fee and you should obviously shop around to get the best quote.
2. Government fees
The first cost that you need into account here is stamp duty. This is a tax that must be paid on every purchase deed. Stamp duty must be paid within 45 days of the closing date and you will pay the monies to your solicitor who will then send it on to the Revenue Commissioners. They will issue a document known as a stamp certificate and this your solicitor will attach this to the deed which was signed by the vendor, confirming that you have bought the property from him.
How much stamp duty you pay will depend on the purchase price. You pay 1% stamp duty on the first €1,000,000 and 2% on any excess. There is also a slight change if you are buying a new house and you can get more details here.
The other charge that will be due to a government office is the fee for the Property Registration Authority. This is the Authority that records formal ownership of every property in he country and the registration fee due will also depend on the price you pay. The current rates are as follows:-
Up to €50,000 €400.00
€50,001 – €200,000 €600.00
€200,001 – €400,000 €700.00
Over €400,000.00 €800.00
Once you have been registered as the owner of the property, a document called a folio will issue. There is also a fee for this document which can cost €40 or €75, depending on the type of property you’re buying.
If you are getting a mortgage, there is an additional fee of €175.00.
3. Surveys and searches
You can expect to pay for a survey to be carried out on the property before the contracts are signed. Strictly speaking, you are not obliged to have this carried out but you are strongly advised to do so. For more information on the need to get a survey, see here.
Your solicitor will also need to make some enquiries to see that the vendor is the formal owner of the property and to ensure that there are no mortgages or other charges registered against it in his name. These searches are carried out by a firm that specialises in carrying out searches of these kind and they will charge a fee for the searches.
It will also be necessary to carry out a planning search before signing contracts. This is needed to make sure that no notices have been served against the vendor in the past eg compulsory purchase orders or enforcement orders. Once again, a specialist searching firm will do this search and you will have to cover this fee.
On occasion there will be a need to have some documents signed by an independent solicitor, depending on the transaction. If this is the case, a solicitor might charge a fee of €10 per signature.
Every transaction is different and the figures set out above may differ accordingly. Once your solicitor has received the contracts and documents from the vendor’s solicitor, they will be able to give you a more exact breakdown of the costs that will be involved. I hope that this post has been helpful to you in the preparation of your budget. If you have any more queries on the costs involved or any other aspect of the purchase transaction, fill out the form below and we’ll get back to you.