Fixed price real estate lawyer fees in Costa Del Sol?
 

Hello all,

I have been told that real estate lawyers in Costa Del Sol charge a 1% rate or more of the sales price to handle a standard house sale/purchase.

It seems odd that there is not a fixed price for what is the same process no matter the price of the house.

Is there any good quality lawyer you known in Costa Del Sol who offers a fair fixed price?

cheers.

Re: Fixed price real estate lawyer fees in Costa Del Sol?
 

I was thinking of just the opposite. Around here they all charge a percentage (IME)

Re: Fixed price real estate lawyer fees in Costa Del Sol?
 

As we find time and time again about many different subject the answer seems to be "it depends on the area". Which is why you are all so tolerant of each others replies to queries.

Rosemary

Re: Fixed price real estate lawyer fees in Costa Del Sol?
 

Just to clarify, i am planning to buy a house and the lawyer quoted me 1% to do the legal work for the purchase.

It is the legal work for a purchase, not the sales commission.

Surely there must be a lawyer(s) in costa del sol who charges a fair fixed amount in euros regardless of the purchase price?

Re: Fixed price real estate lawyer fees in Costa Del Sol?
 

If there is I haven't come across one. I have bought two properties in Spain (in 2003 and in 2017) and the lawyers (different ones for each purchase) both charged 1% of the purchase price of the property.

You will find that some things are done differently in Spain from the way they are in your own country, and if you have difficulty accepting that (even if the Spanish way is less advantageous to you) your life in Spain is not likely to be a happy one as you will be resentful and disgruntled a lot of the time.

Re: Fixed price real estate lawyer fees in Costa Del Sol?
 

Sorry my apologies I miss read original and I referred to real estate agents costs. Yes solicitors fees are in my experience based on %. If I can I will remove my earlier comments.

Re: Fixed price real estate lawyer fees in Costa Del Sol?
 

Its not like the Uk and other places here. We shopped around when we purchased in 2019 and 1% was the lowest we came across.
Stuff happens faster here as well and included in that 1% will (usually) be the notary fee's, swapping over the services, IBI payment and other stuff.

One thing you could try is to negotiate 'extras'. We told the solicitor that we would use them for our residence and driving licence swap, allow their accounts team to process our non-res taxes and when resident we would let them do our 720 etc, we have added our wills to this and they gave us a 40% discount on all the 'extras' as long as we accepted the 1% for the flat.

I suppose if you are spending €500,000 on a house its a bit hard to accept paying the 1% but its on higher priced properties where they make their money.

If it were just €999 per transaction there wouldn't be many solicitors left..
And we paid around this including IVA as the flat was not very expensive, so I suppose they didn't make much on me.

Re: Fixed price real estate lawyer fees in Costa Del Sol?
 

At the end of the day you can shop around and you don't have to use a local solicitor either. As long as they are registered in Spain you could even use somebody from the UK. Most work with partners anyway and it's sometimes better than using someone who might even know the estate agent you bought from. 1% is not much if the purchase price is below 100K.

Re: Fixed price real estate lawyer fees in Costa Del Sol?
 

Flat 1000 euros for a lawyers fee sounds fair on a straightforward purchase of any price.

Why do they feel they can getaway with charging 5000 euros on 500k purchase but only charge 1k on a 100k purchase when it is essentially the same workload?

Re: Fixed price real estate lawyer fees in Costa Del Sol?
 

Isn't that the same with estate agent fees? It's often harder to sell an old house in the middle of nowhere priced at 50K compared to a modern villa with sea view priced at 900K and the workload is the same. You can always negotiate.

Re: Fixed price real estate lawyer fees in Costa Del Sol?
 

I suppose that selling a house can require significantly varying degrees of effort depending on many factors, whereas the standard legal work on a purchase is fairly similar on almost all houses.

Re: Fixed price real estate lawyer fees in Costa Del Sol?
 

Actually when you think about it a % is a fixed fee.

Even at 1% for a straight forward purchase of a property it is normally cheaper to use a lawyer who will fee you on an hourly basis. Most will.

​
​​​​​Best
Loco









Best
Loco