Additional costs with purchase contract: what are your rights?

Questioner

Hello, The text below is in my preliminary purchase contract: Excessive costs of repayment and cancellation of mortgages 'If the costs that will be charged by the notary (chosen by the buyer) with the seller and related to the repayment of bridging loans and/or repayment and the cancellation of the seller's mortgage(s) and/or attachments on the property sold, amounts exceed: €9.68 (incl. VAT) per transfer and €195.00 (incl. VAT and costs) land registry fee) by deed of cancellation, the buyer will have to pay this additional amount take. The notary will include the excess of these costs on the settlement regarding the delivery directly to the buyer. This also applies if there are administration costs, office costs, costs for drawing up a power of attorney for the seller (if the buyer has a notary prefers outside Almere) and/or costs for GBA information will be charged. Costs of demonstrably additional work in connection with the settlement of an estate and/or WSNP/Bankruptcy and/or additional work in connection with obtaining cancellation are included excepted.' Is it legally obligatory for the buyer to pay these additional costs? Thank you in advance!

Lawyer

This is a very common clause nowadays, unfortunately it appears to be necessary. There is quite a bit of competition on price between notaries and buyers often choose the cheapest notary. Cheap notaries often charge excessive costs to the seller, which means that the costs for the buyer can remain low but the notary still ends up with a realistic amount from the transaction. Sellers are therefore faced with extra costs. To protect the seller, a clause in accordance with the clause you quoted is often included nowadays, this is completely legal and the buyer must indeed bear these extra costs. If such a clause is included, a buyer is wise to present this clause to the notary when requesting a quote and to ask how much extra costs there are.

Questioner

Is there a legal fixed amount for this clause? For example can I tell the owner that I will pay only if the costs are above 300 instead of 195?

Lawyer

There are no legal rules, there is freedom of contract. The amounts mentioned in the quote are realistic. If the purchase agreement has already been signed by both parties, you will have to comply with the arrangement included in it. If the purchase agreement has not yet been signed, you can propose to change the amount of EUR 195 to EUR 300. I think it is important that you try to find out what the notary office you want to use will actually charge the seller. These amounts are usually between EUR 100 and EUR 250, but at some notary offices this can go up to EUR 400. Higher also occurs, recently I came across documents where it was almost EUR 800.