Conveyancing costs and fees explained (2026)

Every conveyancing bill is made up of the legal fee, disbursements and property tax. Only the legal fee is your conveyancer's own charge. Disbursements are paid to other organisations on your behalf, and the tax goes to HMRC, the Welsh Revenue Authority or Revenue Scotland.

The legal fee pays for the work itself: checking the title, reviewing the searches and contract, dealing with your lender, exchanging, completing and registering you as owner. Most firms quote a fixed fee for a standard purchase or sale and add supplements for extra work.

No regulator or government body publishes average conveyancing fees; the averages online come from quote-comparison companies. The reliable way to know your cost is an itemised written quote, and our guide to conveyancing quotes explains how to compare them.

Most disbursements are paid by the buyer. HM Land Registry's fees come from fee orders that have applied since 9 December 2024, while search providers set their own prices. The table shows who normally pays, what sets the price and how VAT is usually handled.

GOV.UK says searches usually include a local authority search, a water and drainage search and an environmental search. The local authority search covers planning, building control, roads and local land charges. A drainage and water search shows whether the property is connected to public sewers and mains water. The environmental search looks at risks such as contaminated land and flooding. Your conveyancer may add others for the location, such as a mining search. Where a council's local land charges register has moved to HM Land Registry, an official search certificate costs £15 through HM Land Registry's service; the council or a private search company prices the rest. No official source publishes typical search prices.

In Scotland your solicitor pays 'outlays' such as Registers of Scotland fees and search fees. Registers of Scotland charges £660 to register a disposition (the deed that transfers ownership) for a price between £300,001 and £500,000, and £80 to register a standard security (a mortgage), or £60 if it is submitted digitally. In Northern Ireland, SDLT applies and registration is with the Land Registry run by Land & Property Services, which has its own fee scale (nidirect explains it).

VAT at the standard 20% rate is added to your conveyancer's legal fee if the firm is VAT-registered. For anything else on the bill, the test is whether the firm is simply paying a third party as your agent. HMRC's VAT Notice 700 (section 25.1) sets out eight conditions, including that you received and used the goods or services and that the firm recharges exactly what it paid. Only payments that meet all eight can be passed on without VAT.

HM Land Registry registration fees and Stamp Duty are your own liabilities, so they go on without VAT. Searches are different: in the Brabners case (2017) a tax tribunal agreed with HMRC that online search fees were part of the solicitor's own service, and HMRC withdrew its concession for postal searches on 1 December 2020. The Council for Licensed Conveyancers' guidance note on VAT, valid from 7 May 2026, says firms should charge VAT on search fees unless they simply pass the results on without comment. It says the same may apply to official copies, OS1 and bankruptcy searches used to advise you, and that bank transfer fees carry VAT.

One quote may show searches 'plus VAT' and another may not, so compare totals including VAT, not headline legal fees.

Firms add supplements when a transaction needs extra work. We don't list prices, because they vary by firm and no official source publishes them. These are supplements you may see, and why they involve more work.

Firms regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) must publish price and service information for residential conveyancing: freehold and leasehold sales and purchases, mortgages and remortgages. The SRA's Transparency Rules have applied since 6 December 2018.

The published information must show the total cost (or an average or range where a single figure isn't practicable), the basis of the charges such as fixed fees or hourly rates, the likely disbursements and their cost, whether VAT applies and how much, what the price includes and what it doesn't, the key stages and likely timescales, and the experience and qualifications of the people doing the work. Firms must also publish their complaints procedure.

If a firm has no website, the SRA says you can ask it for this information. The Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC), which regulates licensed conveyancers, says its firms must tell you what you'll be charged when you first instruct them, or very shortly after, and tell you promptly if that changes. Get the price confirmed in writing before you pay anything.

'No sale, no fee' (sometimes 'no completion, no fee') is a firm's own commercial offer, not a regulated term. It generally means you won't pay the firm's legal fee if your purchase or sale falls through. It can't undo money already paid to others: once searches have been ordered, the search provider has been paid.

Check the terms: whether you'd still owe disbursements already paid out, which reasons for the deal collapsing are covered (for example, if you pull out yourself), and whether the fee is higher than the firm's standard price.

You pay in stages. Some firms ask for money on account when you instruct them, and GOV.UK notes that buyers usually pay for searches up front. Before exchange, the buyer sends the deposit set in the contract. Before completion, the conveyancer sends a completion statement showing the balance: the price, less your deposit and mortgage, plus fees, disbursements and tax, which must arrive in time for completion day.

Sellers usually pay from the sale money: GOV.UK says the seller's conveyancer pays off the mortgage, the estate agent and its own fee, then sends the seller what's left. After completion, the buyer's conveyancer pays the tax (within 14 days for SDLT, 30 days for LTT and LBTT) and the HM Land Registry fee. Our guide to how long conveyancing takes sets out each stage.

This example is for one buyer buying a £325,000 freehold house in England with a mortgage, with the conveyancer applying to HM Land Registry online. The tax is worked out with the same engine as our Stamp Duty calculator, using the rates in force since 1 April 2025.

A first-time buyer pays nothing on the first £300,000 and 5% on the remaining £25,000, which is £1,250. A home mover who sells their old home on or before completion day pays 0% on the first £125,000, 2% on the next £125,000 (£2,500) and 5% on the final £75,000 (£3,750), which is £6,250. HM Land Registry's fee is £150 online (£330 by post), and there is no extra fee to register the mortgage when it's sent with the transfer.

At the same price, Land Transaction Tax in Wales would be £6,000 (there's no first-time buyer relief), and LBTT in Scotland £5,850, or £5,250 for first-time buyers, plus the £660 Registers of Scotland fee. If the mover still owned their old home at the end of completion day, England's higher rates would apply: £22,500, with the extra refundable if the old main home is sold within 3 years. Add your own quotes in our Total cost of moving calculator.