Lyons and Company are able to offer you a “No Sale No Fee” Guarantee against abortive charges.  We must stress this is NOT an insurance scheme.

By paying an upfront fee of £132 (inc VAT) for a sale and a further £132 (inc VAT) for a purchase in addition to the fees on our estimate, we would GUARANTEE not to charge you anything more for our time (this does not include the Land Registry Service fee  or identity check fee which are still payable by you) if the matter does not proceed for reasons as set out below.

Our scheme isn’t automatic. If you do not believe there is a high risk  of anything going wrong, then you might not wish to take this out and you could save some money that way. It’s YOUR CHOICE when you first instruct us.

Due to market pressures our fees have needed to be more competitive for ordinary Conveyancing recently. However more transactions have aborted because of uncertainties in the money world we live in. The fee for this abortive scheme reflects that reality.  Our usual abortive fee does depend on how much work has been carried out but on average, we charge around £750 per abortive transaction.

Read on down this page for a full explanation of the scheme and what’s covered by it.

The Problem

  • You are excited with the prospect of buying your new home but then the  survey reveals that the property requires a lot of work and your lender will not provide a mortgage to you. You have to withdraw from the transaction.
  • The people selling to you lose the house they were going to buy and decide not to move after all.
  • After waiting around for several weeks it turns out your buyer is unable to obtain get a mortgage.

This can be very frustrating and stressful. The last thing you want at such a time is to receive what appears to be a very large invoice from us. We always try to be fair and reasonable in our charges. However, in order to keep our costs in general at reasonable levels we have to charge for the work that we have done that has become abortive. If we reach the point of exchange of contracts and someone in the chain withdraws, in some cases the abortive fees might be as much as two-thirds of the amount shown for fees in our estimate plus VAT.

The Solution

  • If you are only selling or only buying pay us £132 (inc VAT) upfront.
  • If you are selling and buying together, you pay us £264 (inc VAT) upfront for the two transactions.

We will then guarantee not to charge you any more for the work we do in relation to the sale or purchase of that particular property if it becomes abortive prior to exchange of contracts (apart from the Land Registry Service fee and Identity checks), which is when you become legally committed to buy or sell as the case may be.  Please note you are still liable for disbursements incurred on your behalf such as search fees.

The Details

To be able to make any profit at all we have to make some stipulations. These are:

  • The scheme applies if your buyer, seller or another party in the chain withdraws and the chain breaks down.  It does not apply should you decide not to proceed in which event our abortive costs are payable by you (unless this is as a result of an adverse survey report where you are unable to obtain your mortgage funds).
  • The scheme does not apply to purchases of flats and maisonettes. The chances of significant legal problems are much higher than with houses and we can spend a lot of time trying to get such issues sorted out. Sometimes our clients are unable to proceed because eventually we have to advise that the property could be difficult to sell and/or the leasehold arrangements do not meet their lender’s requirements.
  • The scheme does not apply to new build purchases or sales of transfers of part.
  • Disbursements are not covered – where we actually have to pay money out to other people, e.g. local search fees on a purchase, copy documents from the local authority, identity check fee or the Land Registry Service fee quoted to you. You will have paid funds on account which should hopefully be sufficient to cover these and so we would not be asking you for any more money if the transaction aborted if that is the case.
  • If you are selling, you will need to pay the £132 inc VAT fee for any subsequent sale if the original transaction falls through. If you are buying and your purchase falls through you will again need to pay the fee of £132 inc VAT for the new purchase.
  • You pay us for the abortive scheme when you first instruct us. When selling, this would be when you find a buyer whose offer you accept and when buying when your offer is accepted. Once any significant amount of legal work has already commenced, the scheme will not be available for that transaction.
  • The guarantee fee covers our usual quoted legal charges only and will not cover for such additional matters as drafting Trust Deeds/Leases or if we have liaised with third party solicitors on your behalf, etc.
  • The guarantee fee is non-refundable.