When you have repaid your mortgage, you then need to discharge the charge (Standard Security) the Lender holds over your property. When you do this, you will own your house outright with no security being held over it by any third party.
Our typical fee for this type of work starts at £200 (exclusive of VAT). The cost for doing this work, including VAT is £240.
As with other types of legal work relating to residential property, there are additional charges involved. In the case of a Discharge of a Standard Security, these generally relate to the registration dues of the Discharge.
The additional costs of discharging a Standard Security
Apart from VAT, there is generally only one additional cost to apply when we discharge a Standard Security for a client. This is the cost of registering the Discharge with the Registers of Scotland. The following is an example of the costs of Discharging a Standard Security:
| Cost of equity release | |
| Legal Fee | £200.00 |
| VAT on the Fee | £40.00 |
| Registration Dues of Discharge | £80.00 |
| Estimated Total | £320.00 |
How can these additional costs vary?
The registration dues of a Discharge are fixed by the Registers of Scotland. When we present the Discharge for registration, this fee will be charged by the Registers of Scotland.
What’s involved in discharging a Standard Security?
There are a number of essential steps we need to take to discharge the Standard Security over your house. These are:
- Taking your instructions and giving you advice
- Dealing with anti-money laundering checks in compliance with regulations
- Ordering up and checking the title to your house
- Preparing the discharge of the Standard Security and sending to the lender for execution
- Confirming no further sums are outstanding on the mortgage
- Presenting the discharge to the Registers of Scotland for registration in the Land Register
- Confirming completion and accounting to you
Could there be circumstances where the fee might increase?
Our fee will remain as stated in a straightforward discharge case. However, where there are complications or additional work to be carried out, we will deal with this for you. Should that happen, we will likely charge additional fees to cover the cost of carrying out that work.
We may encounter problems such as:
- Additional Standard Securities to be resolved
- The lender no longer existing and searches being required to identify current lender
This list is not exhaustive. Should additional work be required, we will inform you as soon as the issue is discovered and provide you with an estimation of time and cost involved in their resolution. With regard to our charges, these are based on the person carrying out the work and the time involved. Our charges are based on the following table:
| Position | Fee (exclusive of VAT) | VAT | Cost (including VAT) |
| Partner | £295 | £59 | £354 |
| Associate | £255 | £51 | £306 |
| Solicitor | £230 | £46 | £276 |
| Trainee/Paralegal | £200 | £40 | £240 |
Please contact us for a detailed breakdown of the costs involved in the discharge of a Standard Security.