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Help!

We have just had confirmed cost breakdown from our lawyers regards mortgage we have taken with Halifax. Included in the costs were the following:

Cancellation Breakdown
Purchase Breakdown
Mortgage Breakdown

All of which add up to a total of 7,572.52 euros. I have never heard of these charges before, and never seen them mentioned in articles regards attaining a spanish mortgage. Has anyone else out there had these charges, or can explain what they are?

Steve and Sandy
 

Hi Steve and Sandy,

I think you should ask Halifax exactly what they mean by these charges.

We used NatWest Spain for our mortgage and did not see any of these as you have mentioned. However when completing be aware that the land registery fees payable to the notary are effectively double as you have to register the property AND the mortgage. I mention this as it is possible that they could mean these fees when they talk of purchase and mortgage breakdown. We were told to allow approximately 12% of the purchase cost for fees and taxes.

Our fees just for the notary where:--

AJD Tax: 1.310 Eur

Hi Stonephil

Thanks for your reply , we have allowed approx 13% for fees, as we understood about all the notary charges and taxes, sol fees etc. but with these costs our total todate would be approx 21200.00 euros  +, which on a penthouse costing 119800.00 , we think does not seem quite right. 
We have requested a breakdown of costs from both the Halifax and our solicitors , as our solicitors have requested the transfer of the funds minus what we have already paid to date.

Will keep you posted.

S & S

Steve + Sandy

Dont know if its applicable in this case but I heard that Halifax we looking to put them selves out of the mortage market in spain and as such we inflating charges and rates to actively discourage anyone from trying to get a mortgage with them !

Please make sure that they are not ripping you off - on our purchase at 137400 we are looking to pay aorund 17K EU so yours does does sound over the odds !

Rgds
Mark

S & S

This is why many people have taken on the builders mortgage which reduces the set-up costs. 

 

Hi Steve and Sandy

I have applied for a Mortgage with Halifax and all the papers I have just list the charges similar to those posted by others with loans from other banks being 1% bank fee. Survey fee, Notary fees and taxes. Again like most others Halifax’s paperwork informs you to expect to pay 10 to 12% in addition to the price paid for the property which is the same information given by PW, Agents and solicitors. I have no idea what Cancellation Breakdown, Purchase Breakdown and Mortgage Breakdown are, it will be interesting to hear what your response is to your request for information on this? Let us know the response you get.

Phil

Hi

Is this estimated extra 10-12% including the IVA (VAT). If not, I didn't realise that the additional costs would be this much.

Phil

 

My understanding is including IVA, the 10 to 12 % being the total of all cost's

Hi all,

I've got an appointment with Halifax in UK tomorrow to discuss opening up both a UK and Spanish account, plus a run through of the forms that I have completed regards Banco Halifax mortgage application. Bit wary now looking at recent threads. I got an online mortgage quote from Halifax for charges on my property (122,100 E) that were broken down as follows: Note didn't include Stamp Duty which I guess is another 1% (1220E) which would bring the total to around 5500E. Caja Murcia - the builders Mortgage have quoted 3150E but appear to be around 40E/month more expensive than Halifax

Mortgage Taxes

Property         840E
Notary            739E
Register        216E
Mgmt Fees   302 E

Sub total       2097E

Property Purchase Taxes

Property        1260E
Notary              449E
Register          165E
Mgmt Fees      279E

Subtotal          2153E

Total Mortgage + Property Purchase:   4250E

Hope this helps. Will provide further details after tomorrow's meeting. We complete 28 Oct so keen to get Mortgage moving. Still unsure who to go with

Paul

 

Hi Paul

Yes that’s similar to the information I have

Phil

Hi All

We have a last received the information from the solicitors and the Halifax  regarding the purchase apartment costs 21700.00 + euros to date..The Halifax use an administation company to sort out all the costs etc. 

Mortgage arrangement fees - survey/1% set up fee/quote/insurance

Cancellation breakdown  938.00 euros - this is a fee that has to be paid by ourselves, until Polaris clear any outstanding debt on the property, once this has been completed the Halifax credit our bank account in approx 1 month.

Mortgage breakdown - this is the mortgage fees , stamp duty,registration fees/notary 

Purchase breakdown - stamp duty/notary/deed registration.

The extra costs of 5900.00 euros (to date) our from our solicitor , who actually to told us to allow 12% for the purchase of our property including th 7%iva , we have been requesting an approx summary of costs from our solicitor, we have now been informed the cost for signing our title deeds is 2350.00 euros , which seems a little high, althougth she is not in Murcia area, we had made her power of attorney to sign for our apartment on the 12/9/08.

We did expect to pay about 13% but not the huge fees which we seem to have been landed with. Please be very careful ,and ask for estimates in writing , as we seem to have been caught out.

  

 

Hi salsdn

Can you confirm I have understood you correctly.

Other than the 938 euros being changed by Halifax, which is to be reimburse, the only direct charges from Halifax are:

Mortgage arrangement fees @ 1%, Survey fee @ about 465 euros

The insurance you mention I have already asked them about and you don’t have to take it but they do have to see the policy to ensure the cover is acceptable to them.

All other charges are those associated with stamp duty/notary/deed registration which all of us have to pay.

All the rest is the amount your Solicitor is charging you for the services she is providing you.

Have I got this right?

Regards

Phil

Hello Phil

The breakdown of fees we have on our apartment of 119800.00 :

Survey   -                                                                    415.00
Set up commision 1%                                            769.12
Quote and insurance                                              600.00
Cancellation breakdown                                        938.60
Purchase breakdown                                             2590.60
Mortgage breakdown                                              2674.60
Solicitors fees- to signing                                      5900.00
Iva 7%                                                                        8386.00
Total                                                                          22273.92         

This is the total to date and we still have to sort out the electric/water/spanish wills and anything else!!!!! we have informed the Halifax that we have taken our insurance with Zurich ,which is the company they actually use.
Think we have been rather niave.
Hope this helps 

Sandy & Steve

 

Hi Sandy & Steve

I am slightly confused:

Survey fee - I understand this is about standard

Set up commission 1% - I understand this is about standard

Quote and insurance – This is expensive, I have just had PW insurance approved by Halifax at under 250 euros.

Cancellation breakdown – I hadn’t heard of this but as long as it is paid back its ok.

Purchase breakdown & Mortgage breakdown – I assume they are the accumulation of the figures shown below in Paul & Jane’s post of the Mortgage and Property taxes which are a set percentage of the other costs.

Solicitors fees to signing – they seem expensive, my solicitor fees are under 1500 euros inclusive but not including will costs.

Iva 7% - I presume this is the 7% Iva we all paid on top of the purchase price of the property from PW which again is normal tax in Spain on all property (being in your case 119,800 + 7% ive 8386 = 128,186.00 total property cost). If it’s another 7% then something is wrong with that?

Have I got this right?

Regards

Phil

Hi Phil

The 7% iva is the figure to include in the total property cost 119800 + iva  , but this is included in most solicitors and ours estimate of 10 - 12 % cost of purchasing the property.

We have also gone with PW re the insurance ,but Halifax have not received a copy yet , hence they still quoted the cost.

S & S

Hi all,
The solicitors costs seem steep. We have engaged a solicitor who is charging less than 1400 euros. They have been superb and have obtained NIE Nos, etc within that. They are also going to settle all bills meaning we don't have to worry about banker's drafts, etc. There is an extra charge of approx 560 euros for Spanish Wills (x2) but this includes Notary fees for the Will registration, etc.
We are using a UK mortgage because it seemed simpler and we wanted to avoid all the complications with an overseas mortgage.
Hope this helps.

 

Hi Sandy & Steve

Yes I see what you are saying I would suggest that the area that takes you well over the general 10-12% figure is the solicitor fee which seem to me excessive.

Insurance fee which you should be able to change.

And the Purchase & Mortgage breakdown fee’s assuming they are the Mortgage and Property taxes, are about 1000 + euros more than I would have expected? But that’s just going on information provided by others, as I haven’t had ours yet.

Regards

Phil

Hi All

Given the various figures being mentioned, I thought I'd better check with my solicitor today about the fees he quoted me when we first met.  The breakdown of what he quoted in Aug 07 was:-

IVA:-10,003 euros (7% of purchase price)
Notary Fees:- 700 euros
Registry fees:-550 euros
Utility connecton:- 600 euros
Gestoria:- 175 euros
Solicitor costs:- 1,480 euros

As we are not needing a mortgage there were no other fees mentioned.  When I e-mailed him this morning, he told me that the figures he quoted were provisional but he said that  "according with my experience, this is the final extra-legal cost that you have to pay to complete your property and is that I called "the worse case scenario". 

If there is anything left over then this will be refunded to me.  The only extra's I am expecting to pay are the Insurance which will probably be done with Zurich for ease just now, and the costs for arranging the Wills.  One other thing he did tell me was that he has spoken to PW and they have told him that there will be no charge for the utility connection.

It seems that there is a large variance of costs going about, but I would agree with what others have said that anything in excess of 10-12% of the purchase price seems excessive.

Hope this helps

Cheers

Simon

 

Hi All

It is also worth noting, when they advise about 10-12% costs, this figure is not inclusive of the mortgage costs and fee’s which are in addition to this.

7% is Iva (Vat)

The other 3%+ is to cover property buying costs such as: Notary fee’s, Tax, Legal fee’s and utility connection charges, or that’s what my information says.

Phil

Hi all,

Really torn between Halifax and the builders mortgage provider - Caja Murcia. Detailed a few threads below is the Halifax quotation and reading responses from Phil, Sandy/Steve and Simon, it appears to be quite a minefield. Just had an e-mail from CajaMurcia with the following figures:
Purchase Registration

Notary Fee             630E
Land Registry       300E
Lawyer/Solicitor   150E
Stamp Duty          1220E


Notary Fee            500E
Land Registry      200E
Lawyer/Solicitor   200E

It's certainly cheaper than Halifax but is more expensive on monthly payments. I need to look at small print on Caja Murcia and there's also balancing the unknown vs a major UK lender

Be good to hear from others who have made a choice.

Phil - I know you've gone for Halifax. Were you able to compare with many other providers before making a decision ?

Paul