Being last year was a very expensive year (i.e. a baby arriving in not standard circumstances) savings were low and the plan was/is to use the equity to fund a deposit, legal fees, stamp duty, moving costs and more.
In the end I accepted the lowest offer since the man was chain free, single and I thought it would go smoothly. How wrong this turned out to be!
Just before getting the offers in, we hunted for a place to buy just past the boundaries of London for the reasons of price, congestion and to be in a greener area. We agreed to buy a place for £465,000. This price is seriously cheap for a small three-bedroom house near London and a similar place near where we live now would be more like £600,000 or more.
Remember in 2025 the economy is poor, the jobs market is even worse and with stamp duty changes getting on the property ladder is harder than ever before. The stamp duty threshold used to be £425,000 and now it is £300,000. For a first-time buyer the stamp duty on a place valued at £350,000 is £2,500 and if you are not a first-time buyer it is £7,500.
Let’s look at the costs to buy/sell and later I will cover the monthly costs post purchase.
- £60 photography fee to estate agent number two
- £1099 mortgage & survey fee to lender
- £67.20 additional search fee to Thames Water
- £599 survey fee for purchase
- £360 to freeholder for filling out a LPE1 form
- £2,716.80 purchase legal fees inc. search pack
- £2,208.00 selling legal fees
- £13,2500 stamp duty tax on £465,000 purchase
On top of this we would likely need to purchase an indemnity policy for lease “issues”, moving fees and more. Once you move in there would be decoration costs, white goods to buy and furniture to purchase etc potentially.
For the above our purchase/sale failed in July due to the buyer or really his law firm being hell bent on inventing “fictitious” issues. He wanted us to fix paper-based issues which were quite pointless or take £34,000 less. Abortive fees were £5,863.50 for nothing, and five months of time wasted. Weak laws, greed and over regulation caused this. As you may know Scotland has stricter laws around the purchase/sale of properties unlike English & Welsh law. Statistics say 1/3 fall through in England & Wales.
Estate agents tell me there is a shortage of buyers for the reasons given above. On top of this many landlords are selling their properties due to high taxes, over regulation and costs. It is hard to make money as a landlord in 2025, especially if you bought your buy-to-rent property recently not decades back when costs were lower. Thus, for the folk who are struggling to buy there are less rentals available and rents are high of course.
Now on to the punchline. Let’s imagine you manage to buy/sell a property, have spent £20,000 just in costs, £93,000 deposit (20%), pay for a removals firm to move your items, buy all the items you need, decorate and settle in.
What are the monthly costs?
- £2,050 monthly mortgage for 25 years
- £30 monthly for broadband
- £10 monthly for VOIP line
- £190 monthly for gas/electricity
- £40 monthly for water/sewage
- £180 monthly for council tax
- £35 monthly for home insurance
The above monthly total is excluding mobile phone bills, car insurance, car petrol, car maintenance, holidays and of course rip off food shops.
This is about £85 a day and you may as well live in a hotel. Again, this is for a small £465,000 house with a sizeable 20% deposit.
Imagine only one person in the household is working and he/she loses their job?
Something is very very wrong with the United Kingdom now!