Selling and Buying property

Hi there,

Some information, please.

Looking to sell my current property (worth around €105,000) and looking to purchase a property around €220,000.

What would be the total approximate fees if using separate agents ?

Could these be reduced any by using the same agent to sell and buy ?


Thanks,

GnG

We looked into this a couple of years ago (although the one we were selling was about 160k and the one buying about the same as your 220k) and the fees (including agents, solicitor, notaries, transfer taxes and so on) would have come to about €35,000.
We stayed put.

marcliff wrote:We looked into this a couple of years ago (although the one we were selling was about 160k and the one buying about the same as your 220k) and the fees (including agents, solicitor, notaries, transfer taxes and so on) would have come to about €35,000.
We stayed put.

We did similar sums as Marcliff last year. The property we had gone for was c280k euros and one selling similar ball park as Marcliff (150 ish) so the property tax and add on fee costs would have come in total to c. 40k euros. The purchase actually fell through,we re-thought, counted our blessings and spent some of the notionally-would-be-wasted tax and fees on improving current property. You probably could negotiate with an agent to reduce their selling commission if you buy through them. Or you could try marketing your home yourself ( we thought about doing that) and avoiding Estate Agent fees ( you'll still have solicitor fees etc though and it might take longer to sell, depends how good you are at the marketing.)

A footnote to my earlier post - the biggest cost element in the moving is actually the taxes; even negotiating a good fee with the agent therefore won't save you an awful lot, you are talking maybe about 2 or 3k at most.

I fully agree with Marcliff & Shiva, we (foolishly??) sold our property for €130k & purchased another for €76k, the total costs involved, agents fee, taxes, notary, legal eagle etc came in at €25k, an astronomical sum by any standard!!!!!!

Just remember, on a property costing €220,000 the transfer tax alone is €22,000. Shocking and it's no wonder many people don't upsize here. Used to be 10% for new (IVA) and 7% for resale (ITP). They put it down to 4% for a while to encourage sales and moving which helped during the last banking crisis but then re-introduced it as a 10% across the board charge which was crazy.
Our solicitors wanted 1% of the price on each property which they reduced to 0.9% if we did both through them which was still over 3k. Estate agents at 5 grand (again, shocking) so already up to 30k. Add on the notary fee, the land registration fee (which the notary does), the utility changing fees and IVA on all those add ons and you can see how it mounts up.

elchedave wrote:I fully agree with Marcliff & Shiva, we (foolishly??) sold our property for €130k & purchased another for €76k, the total costs involved, agents fee, taxes, notary, legal eagle etc came in at €25k, an astronomical sum by any standard!!!!!!

By any standard that seems over top, normally around 15% would be about right.

Hi
I am not agree about the transfer tax costs. When you buy a property the transfer tax cost will be taken into account, so you will not pay the same amount for a house in Spain as for the same house in UK. The transfer tax is actually indirectly paid by the seller thats get a lower price. The correct calculation would then be to include the tax on the property you sell and not on the property you buy.

.

polop wrote:

elchedave wrote:I fully agree with Marcliff & Shiva, we (foolishly??) sold our property for €130k & purchased another for €76k, the total costs involved, agents fee, taxes, notary, legal eagle etc came in at €25k, an astronomical sum by any standard!!!!!!

By any standard that seems over top, normally around 15% would be about right.

Believe me, by the time we totaled everything up, with all the extras, plus valia, utility bills, land registry, new habitation & energy efficiency certificates, the list goes on, €25k was our total & we weren't over charged by our legal teams either.
When you look at 10% buyers tax for the new property plus estate agents fee for selling our old one you have already hit circa €12k & those other costs soon mount up!!!!
Regards,
Dave.