A Breakdown of Our UK Property Sourcing Services
There are two ways to work with us, and the work itself is the same in both. The difference is whether you are buying once or buying repeatedly.
There are two ways to engage me. Either you instruct me for a single purchase and pay one fixed fee for it, or you buy repeatedly and I work on an ongoing basis instead. The searching, viewing, vetting and negotiating is identical either way. What changes is how you pay for it and how much of my attention sits with you between deals.
I act for the buyer only. I take no commission from sellers or estate agents, on any transaction, ever. That’s the fact that determines everything else here.
What the fee buys, on either arrangement
- Agreeing your buying criteria in writing: area, budget, strategy, target return, and the things you won’t accept
- Searching estate agents, auction, off market and direct to vendor
- Rejecting everything that fails the checks, which is most of it
- Viewing in person, with a full walkthrough video and honest notes the same day
- Area checks: crime, flood risk, deprivation
- EPC review, the current rating and what it would realistically cost to improve it
- Title, lease and service charge review
- Comparable sales and a rent figure that holds up when a letting agent looks at it
- The full deal pack, including the flags and the costs
- Negotiating the price, on your side only
- Getting the memorandum of sale issued and solicitors instructed
- Progressing the purchase to completion, with weekly updates
What it does not buy
Your solicitor, your searches, your survey, your mortgage broker, your stamp duty and your refurbishment costs are all paid to those people directly, not to me. I’ll introduce a solicitor who works at my pace, or work with yours. The survey is yours to commission and yours to read, and I’d rather you did.
Ongoing letting management is also separate. I introduce a local firm and stay in the loop, but you contract with them.
Option one: a single purchase
One fixed fee, quoted on the first call and confirmed in writing before any work starts. It doesn’t move afterwards, and it isn’t a percentage of what you pay for the house. It’s paid in three stages: 10% on instruction, 40% at memorandum of sale, and 50% on completion.
That staging is deliberate. Ninety per cent of the fee depends on me actually finding something you want to buy and getting it over the line. A percentage fee would pay me more when you pay more, which is the wrong incentive to have sitting behind a negotiation. The full model is set out on what it costs.
Option two: an ongoing arrangement
If you’re building a portfolio rather than buying one house, a rolling arrangement usually makes more sense than a fee per deal. You get continuous search rather than a search that switches on and off, first look at anything that fits your brief, and no per-transaction fee to weigh up each time something appears.
It suits people who intend to buy more than once in a twelve month period and who want me watching the market for them in between. It’s a poor fit if you’re testing the water with one purchase, because you would be paying for a search you aren’t using.
Whichever you choose, the figure is agreed in writing before work begins, and there are no fees paid to me by anyone else.
| One purchase | Ongoing | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | A first UK purchase, or a one off | Buying two or more in a year |
| How you pay | One fixed fee, staged 10/40/50 | A regular fee, no per deal charge |
| Search runs | While I’m working on your deal | Continuously |
| Commitment | Ends at completion | Ends when you say so |
What overseas buyers usually add
Four things come up almost every time when the buyer isn’t in the country:
- The viewing. I attend in person and film the whole thing, including the street and the neighbours, not just the wide angle lounge shot. For a remote buyer this isn’t a nice extra, it’s the entire basis of the decision.
- Project management. If the property needs work, I coordinate trades I’ve used myself rather than handing you a list of numbers to ring from another time zone.
- Utilities. Energy and broadband set up after completion in one go, through our Utility Warehouse partnership.
- Currency. Transfers through Sciopay rather than a high street bank. On a six figure transfer the spread is real money.
The honest part
I’ve sourced 16 properties. Not every deal completes. Nothing is binding in England until exchange, so a vendor can pull out or a survey can turn something up. If a purchase collapses, the search restarts and there’s no second fee. The ones that completed came in at 10 to 20% below market value, the best at 28% below the original asking price.
That record is small and I publish it rather than rounding it up. You can see four of those purchases written up in full, with the numbers, on case studies.
What to do next
Decide whether you’re buying once or building something. Then get the fee, the scope and the payment stages in writing before anyone starts work, from me or from anyone else. If you want to see how the process runs day to day, how it works sets out all eight stages, and what a secure sourcing service looks like covers what to check before you instruct anybody.