"Richard" wrote:
Al Reynolds wrote:
You probably don't need to do any
local authority searches as you already know about the
land.

You may /think/ that you know about the land, but do you know /everything/
about it?

A fair point. It is at the end of the garden, however, so the
local authority searches are unlikely to turn up anything
different to the ones he has already had done on the house.
An environmental search almost certainly won't find anything
different. We're only talking about a £700 piece of land.

Bear in mind that the cost of disbursements (like
Land Registry fees) are non-negotiable.

but tiny. Assuming the land is unregistered. It is registered, isn't it?
How long has your neighbour owned it? A thought has occurred: do you know
if you are transferring an entire title or just a part? A Transfer of Part
is not that straightforward.

Would it not be simplest in this case to get the landowner to
do the work separating the parcel of land (paying their own
solicitor) and then do a normal transfer on that parcel.
Certainly if the landowner selling this land has set the price
based on the purchaser paying all the legal fees, and there
is a transfer of part to be done, then £600 sounds more
reasonable.

As I said, at LR we will do our best to help but there are
some things best left to those who have done it before.

Believe me, the LR is one of the few national institutions that
I still hold in very high esteem - my dealings with them have
always been a pleasure and the standard of service exemplary.

Regarding leaving things "to those who have done it before",
I still think it is worth considering whether any of the costs can
be avoided, but like you said, it depends on the complexity of
the particular case.

Al