Deposit on sale agreed house

LG1234

Ive agreed a price for a house and now have to pay the deposit to the vendors solicitor. They want a 10% deposit, is this to much? The house is 350k so thats a 35k deposit.

Is it best to pay the deposit by cheque? Do they usually cash it? I have the 35k, but not in the account linked to my cheque book. So it will take a few days to transfer it into that account. I want to wrap this deal up as soon as possible so want to minimise delays, so would it be ok to give them the cheque and tell them not to cash it for three days until it goes into the account?

ballyharpat

yeah, it is normally 10%, if you know the vendor/agent or solicitor, they can/may accept any amount. Check or Bank Draft, or even direct transfer, they will have no problem waiting a few days, but be aware, that anything can happen in the sale of a house, the fastest I've done is 3 months, and that was supposed to be smooth sailing, but there were holidays, illnessses and unsigned papers, be prepared for anything.....

LG1234

From reading around online it seems most people pay a deposit of around 5k and don't pay the 10% deposit until the contracts are signed?

Diane Selwyn

I had to pay a 'booking deposit' of 5k on going sale agreed and then make up the difference to 10% of the sale agreed price when I signed the contracts. As far as I know 10% is standard once you have the contracts to sign. The booking deposit is refundable but once you have signed and paid the full 10% it's no longer refundable if you pull out of the sale. I paid the first 5k to the auctioneer and the remainder to my solicitor. Both amounts were paid by bank draft. My solicitor said I could transfer the funds electronically but my bank was charging more for the eft transaction than for issuing the draft which I though was pretty ridiculous! I never had a cheque account so not sure how that would work out.

Little Miss Cutie

LG1234 wrote: »

From reading around online it seems most people pay a deposit of around 5k and don't pay the 10% deposit until the contracts are signed?

LG1234 - we went sale agreed in June and paid a 7k deposit on the house. From my experience ( sale agreed twice) the deposit is always circa 5-7K.

The balance between 10% and the booking deposit is paid to your solicitor who transfers it once the contracts are signed.

I would be reluctant to hand over such a large booking deposit.

TheDriver

and the booking deposit is refundable whereas when you sign contracts, that deposit is then paid and never to come back........

Little Miss Cutie

Also the 10% thing is a little odd - arent some banks offering 92-95% mortgages?? how would it work in that case as presumably if you have 10% you wouldn't get 92% mortgage.........

Sorry if this is considered OT

Gryzor

Just paid 5K myself for going sale agreed. 10% seems alot at that stage to me..

Cape Clear

IIRC when we went sale agreed the EA askes us for a €5 booking deposit on the advice of the solicitor we only gave him €2K and told him the balance was tied up in a term deposit account. As it happened the sale took 6 months aprox. to complete. No need at all to be helping the EA's cashflow. Any other funds were paid to our solicitor when contracts were exchanged.

D3PO

Cape Clear wrote: »

. No need at all to be helping the EA's cashflow..

The funds are held by the solicitor and must be in a non interest bearing account. Thats not the reason a deposit is paid its not done to help cashflow for anybody nor for them to cream off interest using clients cash.

L1011

D3PO wrote: »

The funds are held by the solicitor and must be in a non interest bearing account. Thats not the reason a deposit is paid its not done to help cashflow for anybody nor for them to cream off interest using clients cash.

A booking deposit, which is what was being mentioned there, does get paid to the EA.

Rezident

We just went sale agreed and have been asked for an €8k deposit (purchase price >€500k). 10% sounds like a lot!

Woshy

We also just paid €8k to the estate agents for a booking deposit.

OP - your post wasn't 100% clear. Have you already paid other money to the estate agent as a booking deposit? You said in your OP that the 10% was to go to the vendors solicitor. Paying 10% to the vendors solicitors after contracts have been signed is normal.

BeatNikDub

Is this a private sale?
Is it a booking deposit you have been asked to pay?
If so that is usually calculated as 3% of the asking price and rounded off.

The other deposit paid is done further down the line during the legal process upon signing contracts.

What does your own solicitor advise?

MartinAnt

We just had to pay €5k too.