If you’re house-hunting, you’re crunching numbers. You can borrow four times your income as a first-time buyer, or three times otherwise. You’ll need a 10 per cent deposit too. What you might not know about is the €10,000 or more extra you’ll likely need to cover “hidden” costs.
Solicitors fees; valuation, survey and snagging costs; insurance; property tax; stamp duty; property management fees; moving costs – they add up. So how much will you need, can you get money off and when do you have to pay? Unless you’re careful, things can spiral.
For buyers laser-focused on house prices, the extra costs of buying can be a shock, says mortgage broker Michael Dowling of Irish Mortgage Brokers.
Someone borrowing €300,000 will need a €30,000 deposit. But there are other non-negotiables they will need to fund too – things like a bank valuation, legal fees and stamp duty can quickly add another €6,000 to your costs, says Dowling.
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“I can’t go to the bank and say, ‘ah well, in three months time when the sale completes, my client will have saved that amount’. You need to show you have the money up front,” he says.
For some costs, like a house valuation and structural survey, you’ll definitely need the money early on. Others like stamp duty and your solicitor’s bill will fall due later. It’s a good idea to plot them out so know what’s due when.
Legal fees
Legal fees can be the single biggest cost of buying a home. While you may not pay them until your purchase is about to complete, an estate agent will require the name of your solicitor early on in the process. This means agreeing a fee early. Some buyers are paying over the odds.
“The variation in costs that clients are paying to solicitors is huge,” says Sean Corbett, director of SYS Mortgages. “You can end up paying €2,000 to €5,000, depending on the solicitor,” he says.
“You’d be surprised how many people don’t ask for a quote in advance,” says Corbett. Call three practices and ask for written quotes, inclusive of VAT, to compare. In addition to a solicitor’s professional fee, postage, outlays and copies of land registry documents can add another €350 to the bill.
Some 28 per cent of property sales fell through in the third quarter of this year, according to figures from estate Owen Reilly. Buyer caution and remorse after intense bidding were factors, but conveyancing throws up curve balls too.
Ask a solicitor about costs if a sale falls through.
“If the sale falls through due to a defective title, or the seller pulls out, you could be paying solicitor’s fees for something you are not buying, so it’s important from day one to ask if there is an abortive sale fee. With some firms you can walk away and the sale won’t have cost you anything in legal fees,” says Corbett.
Ask for a fixed fee quote too: this means you will pay the same amount, no matter how complicated the conveyancing.
Choosing a firm that specialises in conveyancing can be helpful, says Corbett. “They are not off doing other work when the courts are open and then the solicitor is missing for a couple of weeks.”
Insurance
You don’t need to pay for home insurance until you are signing on the dotted line but you should check if the property is actually insurable before wasting money on a survey or valuation.
“The minute you find a property, even if you haven’t bid on it yet, send me the link to it,” Corbett tells his mortgage clients.
Provided with the eircode, an insurance broker can check if the area is a flood risk, for example. If the property is not insurable, you won’t get a mortgage. Heartbreak certainly but better to find out early.
Budget for between €430 and €900 annually for home insurance, depending on location, rebuild cost, cover, security and the excess you’re prepared to accept. Paying in monthly instalments can ease the upfront hit though it will likely raise the overall cost.
If it’s a vacant or derelict property, a premium covering damage to others, like a chimney stack falling can be more expensive.
Your lender will also want you to have life assurance covering the amount of any mortgage. If you can’t get life insurance, you’ll find it difficult to draw down a mortgage, says Corbett.
Check this before your house hunting starts and once you’re loan-approved in principle. This allows time for medicals if required.
Your insurability, and the cost, will be based on your age, health status, whether you smoke, the amount of cover you require and the term of the loan.
A couple, both 38 and non-smokers, might expect to pay about €52 a month for a €350,000 mortgage over 25 years. Shop around. Many people just take the policy offered by their lender but you will almost certainly get better value through a broker or comparison site.
“It doesn’t cost you anything to get underwritten for a life policy. You only start paying when the policy goes into force when you need it to draw down the mortgage,” says Corbett.
Property survey
If you are taking on hundreds of thousands of euro in mortgage debt, you’ll need to know the building is sound. A building survey will cost from €600 for an apartment to €900 for a larger house, including VAT.
The survey will need to be done and paid for after you go “sale agreed”, says Michael Dowling. An engineer or architect can advise of any defects and quantify the cost of fixing them.
This information may even help you negotiate on price, says Dowling. And even if any defects are not deal breakers, a survey is a handy hit list for projects in your new home as finances allow.
Valuation fee
Is the property worth the price? Your bank needs to verify this before giving you money. They will provide the names of valuers they trust, but the cost falls to you.
Some banks have a panel of valuers, says Corbett, but not everyone on a panel may charge the same. “I know of one valuer who charged €180 plus VAT and another charged €150 plus VAT to do a similar property,” says Corbett.
Valuers on other banks’ panels all charge the same fixed cost, he says.
“So, it depends on the bank whether you will have a little bit of room for negotiation, but you are not going to save much, maybe €20 or €30.”
Snagging
Most buyers are paying for professional snagging of a new build, says Corbett. If the shower door swings funny, or the tile pattern is askew, get the builder to fix it before they leave town – or face years of irritation.
“Recently, a property we arranged a mortgage for came back with 84 different items. The client had paid a lot of money for someone to do the snagging for them,” says Corbett.
After the builder fixed them, the client paid the snagger to return. Some issues remained.
“The snagger is now going into the property three times and being paid every time,” says Corbett. “These are the hidden costs that aren’t always seen.”
Expect to pay up €230 plus VAT to snag a three-bed house, with a reinspection costing up to €120.
Management fees
If you’re buying in a multi-unit development, there will be an annual management charge. Owners automatically become members of the owners’ management company (OMC).
An OMC typically hires a property management company to oversee maintenance of the development. This company collects an annual management charge from owners to pay for maintenance and a sinking fund for future projects.
Annual charges can be chunky, from €1,500 to €3,000 a year, says Michael Dowling. Find out what month they fall due. Paying in monthly instalments can ease the hit.
If you are buying the property half way through the OMC’s financial year for example, the seller’s solicitor and your solicitor will typically apportion fees so that you reimburse the seller for the remaining months of the year for which they have paid. You’ll need to pay this when the sale is closing.
This can be a bargaining chip too. You could suggest the seller covers the management charge for the rest of the year to compensate for a clapped out washing machine for example.
Taxes
As a rule, Revenue must given clearance before a property changes hands to confirm that local property tax liabilities and filings are up to date. Your solicitor should ensure you are not accepting any unpaid local property tax debt from the seller – once you become the owner that debt becomes yours.
The property’s valuation on November 1st, 2025 determines the local property tax (LPT) charge for the years 2026 to 2030. A property valued at between €420,001 to €525,000, for example, will be liable for an annual charge of €428. You could spread the cost in monthly instalments of €36.
You’ll also pay stamp duty tax based on the value of the property you’re buying.
“Stamp duty is due before you get the keys and a lot of first-time buyers aren’t aware of that,” says Corbett. If your prospective home is valued at up to €1 million, you pay 1 per cent. On a house valued at €500,000, that means you will need to find €5,000 to cover the stamp duty that will be due.
On properties valued between €1 million and €1.5 million, stamp duty rises to 2 per cent on any amount over the €1 million mark – so you’ll pay €14,000 for a €1.2 million property. If your new home is worth more than €1.5 million, you will pay 6 per cent on anything above that figure.
“What I’m finding is that people get their mortgage approval and quite rightly, they keep saving for things like stamp duty,” says Corbett.
“First-time buyers have scraped the 10 per cent deposit together by way of a gift or savings and they are telling me, we will save up the rest between now and when the mortgage goes through,” says Corbett.
“Once you find a property, you don’t need the stamp duty or the solicitor’s fees really until you are about to get the keys,” says Corbett.
Other costs
Is your mortgage broker charging a fee? Then shop around. Mortgage brokers typically make their money through commission made from lenders. Read the small print, ask for the broker’s terms of business which have to detail how they get paid and if they charge fees.
The vagaries of conveyancing in this State can mean a “move in” date can be a moving target. Hiring a furniture remover can be costly if delivery can’t proceed on the date booked.
“In the UK, if you are given a move in date, you will move in on that date, but it’s a movable target in Ireland,” says Corbett.
“I was told the day before [I was due to move in] that closing was going to be delayed by a week. The removal firm charged me €1,800 extra because I didn’t give them enough notice to cancel,” says Corbett of a recent house move.
Check a mover’s cancellation terms, or wait to have your furniture delivered after you move in.
Moving in day itself can show up unexpected costs, so ask for a final inspection immediately before closing.
“Be clear about what needs to be removed from the property and what you expect to remain,” says Corbett. One young couple he recently worked with found some surprises.
“They went into the attic and found the seller had left everything there. They had to pay €400 for a skip and spend a whole weekend emptying the loft.”
