Buying a house is quite possibly the best thing that I have ever done. It is the honestly the best thing that I have ever spent my money on. The shock really does set in a little when you sit down and work out just how much you have spent on your house.

I think that most of us when we think about jumping onto the property ladder we consider the deposit that we are going to put down and I think that for the majority of people we opt for a 10%. Realistically, you need to make sure that you are budgeting. It costs much more than the sale value of the house and you need to plan.

 

 

Solicitors Fees

This is a fee that I absolutely begrudged paying because our solicitor was absolutely terrible. I think that it is a nationwide decree written out that states that all solicitors must drag their feet as much as they can. Not to mention ignore you whenever you ask them a question. Trying to get information out of a solicitor is like trying to get blood out of a stone. This is ridiculous when you think that you are literally paying them to look at paperwork (which is familiar to them and which they do every day), iron out the kinks and then get you to sign on the dotted line. I could understand if it was something that was new and complicated to do. They are literally just asking them to do the job that they are paid to do and having to pay a small fortune for the privilege!

 

Conveyancing Fees

The bank which you are requesting a mortgage from will need to come out and ensure that the property that you are requesting a loan for, is actually worth the money. There seem to be two different surveys which you can opt for, a simple basic and then a comprehensive survey. The basic survey just checks that the house is worth the money that you are requesting, whereas the more in-depth survey checks everything from the electrics to the boiler, etc.

 

Mortgage Advisor and Costs

One of the key pieces of advice that I can give you is to go with a mortgage advisor. I am very clued up when it comes to mortgages because we were on the hunt for our dream house for such a long time, but nothing will ever come close to speaking to a professional whose day job it is to look into mortgages. I think we paid around £500 at the time. Luckily for us, the mortgage that we opted for did not have to pay an upfront fee, but for some mortgages, you can have to pay a premium of up to around £1000, just for the privilege of paying off a mortgage for the next 30 years!

 

Life and House Insurance

This isn’t exactly something that will break the bank before getting the keys to your own home, but it is something that you need to consider. Before the bank will release the cash for your mortgage, you need to make sure that you have some life and home insurance in place, and they will need to see proof of this. Obviously, like any form of insurance, there are various tiers that you can select from basic to premium. For us, we went for the basic rate just to get the certificate that we need and then once we were more established with all our monthly payments, we looked into upping our premium to get better cover!

 

Stamp Duty

This is normally one of the largest additional costs aside from the deposit when it comes to buying a house. This is something that you really need to consider before purchasing a house. You really have to think about how much you will be paid alongside your deposit. Luckily, there is no stamp duty for first-time buyers, so we got away with it this time. I know that for most people this is one of the most painful fees to have to pay!

 

Moving Costs

When we had our date for moving into the new house, we tried to do everything ourselves. We said that we would only need official movers for the really large things like our fridge/freezer and sofa. It wasn’t until I had packed up most of the house that I realised that there was no way in hell that I could do it. Why was I going to break my back lugging loads of boxes around when I could pay somebody a couple of hundred pounds to do it for me!

 

Decorating Fees

When moving into a new house, you may tell yourself that you do not want to decorate it straight away. The truth is, once you are in the house, you will have ideas running around your head. Trust me, you will want to get straight into the decorating game. I made sure that we had a couple of thousand of pounds set to one side. This was cash for immediate changes and get some of the larger and more essential furniture into the house.

 

I do not want to scare anybody off from buying a home. As I said, it really is one of the best things that I have done with my cash. I will never regret my decision to get on the property ladder. I just think that buying a house is one of the biggest things that you will ever do and it is best to go into it with all of the information that you could need to try and make the process as stress-free as possible. Make sure to leave me a comment down below. Let me know what the house-buying process was like for you and if were there any hidden fees!