What costs are involved in buying a Property?

 

There are a number of things for you to consider in addition to the price of the property itself.

 

Stamp Duty

 

Stamp Duty (or Stamp Duty Land Tax, SDLT) is a tax levied by the Government when you are buying a home, not selling. It is paid on completion of a purchase and your solicitor will ask you to complete a Land Transaction Return and will need the funds to cover the duty shortly before the completion date. Your solicitor will then send the money to the Inland Revenue on your behalf.

 

Property or lease premium or transfer value SDLT rate

Up to £125,000 Zero

The next £125,000 (the portion from £125,001 to £250,000) 2%

The next £675,000 (the portion from £250,001 to £925,000) 5%

The next £575,000 (the portion from £925,001 to £1.5 million) 10%

The remaining amount (the portion above £1.5 million) 12%

 

If this all sounds a little complicated please use the handy stamp duty calculator on our website which will help you to calculate the amount of stamp duty payable based on the purchase price agreed.

 

Fees for selling a Property

 

Sole Agency 1.25% plus VAT (1.5% inclusive of VAT)

 

Multi Agency 1.50% plus VAT (1.8% inclusive of VAT)

 

Legal Fees

 

Dependent on a number of variables, namely the size of the transaction, your choice of solicitor and the amount of work required, conveyancing fees can vary quite dramatically, but on average, expect to pay between 0.5% - 1% plus VAT of the purchase price of the property.

 

Richard James can help you find a specialist firm of solicitors but whomever you instruct, we'd advise you to get a written quote and a breakdown of each individual charge before you go ahead. Within the quote, you will be subject to disbursement costs such as Land Registry fees, obtaining property deeds and various searches that your solicitor will detail in the final invoice.

 

For further information, please go to www.lawsociety.co.uk

 

Removals

 

We work with a number of very good, reputable firms and will be glad to recommend them upon your request.

 

Renting a Property

 

Fees for letting a Property

 

Sole agency 8% plus VAT (9.6% of the annual rent inclusive of VAT)

 

Multi agency 10% plus VAT (12% of the annual rent inclusive of VAT)

 

Rental admin fees

 

The landlord is responsible for paying agency fees, Inventory/Inventory checkout fees and Cleaning.

 

Prospective tenants interested in renting a property through Richard James will need to be aware of the following pre-tenancy costs due prior to the commencement of a tenancy

 

Reservation Fee

 

The equivalent of one week’s rent is to be paid to Richard James in order to remove the property from the market and commence referencing. The ‘deadline for agreement’ for both parties is usually 15 days after the reservation fee has been received by a landlord or agent (unless otherwise agreed in writing). Please note, this deposit is non-refundable if you provide false or misleading information. Should the tenancy proceed, Richard James can either refund the reservation fee directly to you or put it towards your rent or security deposit (subject to your consent).

 

Security Deposit

 

Prior to the tenancy, you will be required to pay a security deposit capped at no more than five weeks’ rent where the annual rent is less than £50,000, or six weeks’ rent where the total annual rent is £50,000 or above. This money is lodged with The Deposit Protection Service www.depositprotection.com

Propertymark - CMP (client money protection)

Scheme number - C0129873

 

Our Privacy Policy

At Richard Estate Agents, we value your privacy and following the new rules set by the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we have updated our privacy policy as of 22nd May 2018.

 

Introduction

This privacy policy tells you how and why we collect, store and use your personal data when you visit our website and interact with us via our website.

It tells you about your rights in relation to your personal data and how the law protects you. Also covered is how to contact us and the authorities in the event you have a complaint.

We ask that you read this privacy policy carefully so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. If you have any questions, or would like to exercise your privacy rights, please contact us directly at enquiries@richardjames.biz

 

 What data is collected by us

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed which is classed as anonymous data.

During your visit and interaction with our website collect a variety of information. This personal data falls into these categories:

 

Contact data includes addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers when provided through an enquiry form, or registration form

 

Technical data includes browser type and version, location, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access the website.

 

Aggregated data through a web analytical service called Google Analytics which provides statistical or demographic data. Aggregated data however is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate usage data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website page or which days have more visitors.

 

How is your personal data collected?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including:

 

Direct interactions - You may give us your identity, and contact data by filling in forms or by interacting with the website. This includes personal data you provide when you:

  • Sign up to receive a newsletter.
  • Make enquiries or request information be sent to you

 

Automated interactions - As you interact with us, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your device, browsing actions and patterns. We may also collect Tracking Data when you use our website. We also receive data about you from our analytic provider though this does not identify you.

 

How and why we use your personal data

Under data protection law, to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, we can only use your personal data if we have a valid reason for doing so and where consent is required.

For example, when you make an enquiry with us, you provide us with your contact information to respond to you.

 

What we use your personal data for

  • To provide services to you
  • To make contact with you through email or by telephone
  • Notification of any changes to our services
  • Marketing communications that may be of interest (only where consent has been given) 

Third party data collection

Links to external sources and third party sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook may exist from this website. They may request your personal data and we cannot take responsibility once you leave our site.

 

Who we share your personal data with

Outside of our company, we only share data with a third party supplier for the purpose of offsite data backupAll such backups are transmitted and stored in encrypted form (so is not readable) in locations within the United Kingdom.

We only allow our service providers to handle your personal data if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data.

Whilst third party organisations related to IT and software maintenance may have temporary visibility of your information, these organisations do not have permission to use your data and will only be given access if required.

If you wish to discuss this further, please contact us enquiries@richardjames.biz

We will not sell or lease your personal information to any third parties.

 

How long your personal data will be kept

We will keep your personal data when it is provided to us. We will do so for one of these reasons:

  • To respond to any questions, complaints or claims made by you or on your behalf
  • To show that we treated you fairly
  • To keep records required by law

We will not retain your data for longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this policy. When it is no longer necessary to retain your personal data, we will delete it.

 

Your rights

Under the General Data Protection Regulation, you have the following rights, which at any time you can exercise:

 

Right of access

You have the right to be provided with a copy of your personal data

 

Rectification

You have the right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data 
You have the right to be forgotten - The right to require us to delete your personal data in certain situations

 

Restriction of processing

You have the right to require us to restrict processing of your personal data

 

Data portability

You have the right to receive the personal data you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format

 

The right to object

You have the right to object in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal data, eg processing carried out for the purpose of our legitimate interests. This is by checking the opt out option within any enquiry forms.

 

Not to be subject to automated individual decision-making

The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you. 

For further information on each of the above rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, see the guidance from the UK Data Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights under the General Data Protection Regulation. 
If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:

  • Email, call or write to us
  • Let us know the data to which your request relates

 

 

Keeping your personal data secure

We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal data from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your data will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach.

We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

When communicating with us by email you should ensure that you take all reasonable precautions to protect any sensitive personal data.

 

Cookies

A cookie is a small piece of information that a site puts on your device so that it can remember something about you when you return at a later time. It is a mechanism that allows the server to store its own information about a user on the user's own computer.

In order to use the site, you agree to let cookies be saved as they are an important part of navigation of the site.

 

Third party cookies used on the site.

Google Analytics is a service that generates detailed statistics about our website visitors. Their cookies typically store anonymous information such as whether a visitor has been to the site before, the time of the current visit and what was the referrer site the visitor came from.

  

 

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