Trading places can be a tricky business

Moving house is very close to the top of the all-time list of stressful life events, beaten into third place only by death and divorce, writes Laura Slattery.

After the honeymoon period wears off, once-proud homeowners often become less and less satisfied with their patch of land and quota of bricks and mortar. Suddenly they find themselves going for long walks in other parts of the city, peering into the windows of auctioneers' offices to compare asking prices beneath the rows of house photographs.

Incentives to trade up can be powerful. Alternatively, sellers may want to downsize and pocket the cash or simply move closer to shops, schools and other services.

Whatever the motivation for making that initial phone call to the estate agent, sometime during the whole stop-start, money-sucking process of moving house, the question "why am I doing this again?" will pop back into your mind.

That's because the difficult-to- prove line on moving house is that it is right up near the top of the all-time list of stress-inducing life events, beaten into third place only by death and divorce. Certainly, handing over thousands of pounds in solicitors and estate agents' fees could well increase your heart rate, while getting everything you own from A to B is never without some minor trauma.

But the highest single cost of moving house will be the stamp duty payable on the property, which is charged at a higher rate than for first-time buyers in most of the price bands.

Stamp duty is calculated on a sliding scale depending on the value of the property up to a maximum of 9 per cent, but the thresholds are fairly low. Somebody who isn't a first-time buyer is exempt only on property worth less than €127,000. A house with a purchase price of €400,000, for example, attracts stamp duty of 7.5 per cent, or €30,000.

"Housing in Dublin is very expensive, so it doesn't take a lot to be paying 7.5 to 9 per cent stamp duty. The rates are phenomenal compared to the UK. It's a very large cost that has to be taken into account," says Mr Michael Grehan, operations director of residential business at Sherry FitzGerald.

Movers can expect to pay a solicitor about 1 per cent of the sale price of their old home and about 1 per cent of the purchase price of their new home. So if the first home sells for €300,000 and the second home has a €500,000 price tag, solicitors' fees could be in the region of €8,000, plus VAT at 21 per cent and expenses. Clients may be able to whittle down legal bills by negotiating and shopping around.

Estate agents' fees will typically be between 1.5 per cent and 2 per cent of the sale price, plus VAT, and that does not include the cost of advertising the property. "For a private treaty sale, the marketing costs would be €500 to €1,000. For an auction they would be between €2,500 and €3,500," says Mr Wade Wise, managing director of HOK Residential. No more than 15 per cent of the market goes to auction, he says.

With a good supply of both owner-occupiers and investors ready to pounce on the nearest available property, selling is not too difficult at the moment. Finding a new home can be more problematic.

"I think the problem with the market all year is that the supply hasn't been fantastic. The houses on the market now are people who decided over the summer that they wanted to sell by the end of the year. But autumn is the time when you would expect it to be busy," notes Mr Grehan.

Renting accommodation in between houses can also add to the cost of moving house. For people who don't want to sell before they secure their new home, lending institutions will offer short-term bridging loans, but interest rates on these can be high.

Ideally, movers should be able to hand over the keys to their old home and walk straight into their new home but, with several parties and more than one sale involved, perfect timing isn't always possible.

If the market value of the new property is greater than that of the old, home insurance premiums will increase to reflect the sum insured.

Land registry fees, surveyors' costs of around €300 and the price of removal and storage also need to be taken into account, as do smaller charges such as using An Post's redirection service, which costs €25 for three months, €50 for six months and €75 for a year for redirections to an address within Ireland.