178 / 364
The Council will be obliged for your comments."
The Society also wrote to Deputy Mark Clinton on
5/11/65: —
"Dear Deputy,
In the
Irish Times
of November 3rd you were re
ported as having stated during
the debate on
the
Housing Bill that the legal expenses of a house costing
£3,500 are £450, and the auctioneer's fees about £175
for the privilege of buying one's own house. If you are
correctly reported you have been badly misinformed.
Solicitors' costs for
the purchase of a house costing
£3,500 are £97-10-0 where
the
title has not been
registered. If the title has been fully registered
the
costs are £53-15-0. The stamp duty charged by the
State is £105-0-0 except in the case of a house bought
with the assistance of a housing grant from the Depart
ment of Local Government. In the latter case the stamp
duty is £35-0-0. These are
the purchaser's solicitors
costs. The only other costs chargeable would be
the
mortgagee's costs
if
the property
is bought with a
Building Society Loan. The
total amount could not
remotely approach the figure quoted.
In the common case of a new house where a lease
is taken of an underdeveloped site the costs are usually
lower than the figure which I have given for a sale
for £3,500 or unregistered land.
Auctioneers' fees are not in the control of the solicitors
profession but
if
the property were
sold by public
auction the auctioneer's fees would be £175, payable
by the purchaser. If the property is in Dublin and the
sale is by private treaty the house agent's fees will be
£87-10-0. Outside Dublin the house agents fees on a
private sale would be £175-0-0. If you
require any
further information I shall be glad to supply it and I
hope you will take the opportunity of correcting the
wrong impression created by the report if you have
the opportunity of doing so."
In 22/11/65 the Society received the following letter
from Deputy Clinton: —
"Dear Sir,
You wrote
to me
some
time ago
in
relation
to
figures quoted by me in the Dail while discussing the
Housing Bill.
These
figures were supplied
to me by a
firm of
House Purchase Loan Specialists, and I naturally ac
cepted them as correct. The document I received was
headed "Charges on Purchase of House valued £3,500,"
and underneath the following figures were given:
£
s.
d.
Stamp Duty
...........................
105
0
0
Purchaser's Solicitors Fees
............
105
0
0
Purchaser's Solicitor's Fees
dealing
with Mortgage
..................
45
0
0
Mortgage Solicitor's Fee on Loan of
£3,000
..............................
45
0
0
Vendor's Solicitor's Fee
TOTAL:
300
0
0
............
105
0
0
£405
0
0
I cannot understand why a firm of this kind would
have any interest in exaggerating the position in relation
to fees and I very much regret if these figures are not
accurate, and, at the earliest opportunity, I will quote
the figures given to me by you."
On 8/12/65 the society received the following letter
from the office of the Minister for Local Government:—
"A Chara,
I am directed by Mr. Neil T. Blaney, Minister for
Local Government, to refer to your letter of 5th Nov
ember, 1965, about a report in the
Irish Times
of 3rd
November on the Housing Bill, 1965, in which references
were made to the costs of house purchase.
During the course of the debates in the Dail, Deputy
Clinton stated that the cost of purchasing a £3,500
house was about £450. This caused a general dis
cussion on the incidental costs of house purchase, par
ticularly in
the case of new houses with which
the
Housing Bill
is primarily concerned.
It was
in
this
context that the Minister stated that he was not mak
ing any apology for the stamp duty charged by
the
State. His remarks are reproduced in the Dail Debates
for 2nd November, 1965, at column 946.
The stamp duty on a new grant house bought by way
of lease of the site, as is the common practice, would
generally not exceed £3. If, as is the less usual case,
stamp duty
is charged on
the purchase price after
completion of
the house,
it would amount
to £35.
Stamp duty on old or non-grant houses or other property
costing over £2,500 is, as you say, charged at the rate
of 3 per cent. The same arguments for a concessionary
rate of duty do not, however, apply here as in the case
of new houses.
The Minister is very conscious of the fact that legal
fees on house purchase
in England are considerably
lower than here and that those in Scotland are lower
still. The English Incorporated Law Society have car
ried out an investigation directed at simplifying the
whole business of house conveyancing with the possi
bility of a further reduction
in costs and fees. The
Minister would be glad to know if your Society would
be willing to institute a similar investigation here."
On 20/12/65 the Society wrote the following letter
to the office of the Minister for Local Government: —
"Dear Sir,
I acknowledge receipt of your letter of December 8th.
Deputy Clinton has acknowledged that the figure of
£450, with which he was supplied as the legal costs
of the purchaser of property for £3,500 with a mortgage
of £3,000, was incorrect. The Council fail to see why
attention
is always
focussed on solicitors' charges
in
considering
the overall cost of conveyancing and in
vestigation of title. There are other far more important
elements in
the total, including auctioneer's fees and
stamp duty. A solicitor acting for a vendor or pur
chaser carries a very heavy responsibility for negligence
and in effect guarantees the client against loss in con
nection with the transaction. In the present case the
impression created by the discussion in Dail Eireann was
that stamp duty at 3 per cent is solicitor's remuneration
and the costs of the vendor's and purchaser's solicitors
and the stamp duty were added together and repre
sented as the legal fees of the purchaser's solicitor.
The Council are satisfied that short of the establish
ment of a comprehensive system of registration of title
proposed under the Registration of Title Act 1964 there
is no method of simplifying the title investigation part
72