The legal costs of buying a house
Updated: 17th Dec, 2024
Author: Nick Farquhar
Introduction
Understanding legal costs when buying a home can be overwhelming. The complex legal process and jargon can lead to many questions about what to expect.
To help, we've compiled a definitive guide to the legal costs of buying a home in 2024 by gathering data from dozens of solicitors' and conveyancing firms' websites and price comparison websites. We'll cover the average legal costs for home buyers, explain each cost, and explain whether it might apply to your house purchase.
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💰 Average fees
What are the average solicitor or conveyancer fees for buying a house in 2024?
Based on our research, the average total legal costs for a first time buyer buying a freehold house worth £285,000 (the UK average) in 2024 is £1,926. The average for a leasehold flat of the same price is £2,687.
The amount you pay a solicitor is made up of 3 parts:
- 🧑⚖️ Base legal fees - the cost of paying for a solicitor's time to do the legal work required to buy a house
- 🔍 Disbursements - anything solicitors pay 3rd parties for on your behalf such as Stamp Duty
- 🏡 Additional fees - any non-standard things that come up during your house purchase that require extra work
In the table below, we've broken down how much you will need to pay in base legal fees and disbursements. We'll get on to additional fees later in this guide.
Average Legal Costs for a £285,000 property in England or Wales (including VAT):
| Cost | Freehold | Leasehold |
|---|---|---|
| 🧑⚖️ Base legal fees | £1,276 | £1,552 |
| 🔍 Disbursements | £650 | £1,135 |
| 🏡 Additional fees | Varies | Varies |
| TOTAL | £1,926 | £2,687 |
If you’re not a First Time Buyer (FTB), you will need to pay an additional £1,500 Stamp Duty. FTBs currently don’t need to pay Stamp Duty on properties under £425k (changing to £300k from the 1st of April 2024)
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Answer a few questions, and we'll calculate a personalised cost estimate. We'll also show you up to 4 solicitors or licensed conveyancers who can help you with your transaction.
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🧑⚖️ Base Legal fees
You pay base legal fees to cover your solicitor’s salary for the basic legal work of buying a property. This includes reviewing documents, raising enquiries, and the admin work of submitting forms to process the transaction.
Typically, legal fees are higher for more expensive properties. For example, the average legal fee for a £150k freehold property was £1,020. For a £600k freehold property, it was £1,456.
The lease type of the property is another major factor. Leasehold transactions are more complex than freehold ones, so conveyancers typically charge higher fees.
🧮 Base Legal Fees Estimator
Enter your property price below (an estimate is fine if you don’t know yet) to get an estimate of your base legal fees.
💸 VAT on legal fees
Conveyancers will charge 20% VAT on top of their legal fees. Some conveyancers include VAT within their quotes, whereas some split it into a separate line or even say "+ VAT" and do not give you a figure. When reviewing quotes, ensure you've added VAT to the total.
Ask your conveyancer to clarify if your quote or invoice isn't clear.
We have included VAT in all our numbers in this guide.
⚠️ Watch out for quotes that look too good to be true! ⚠️
We’ve found some conveyancers promise low legal fees but then have sneaky additional fees that everyone has to pay, like “File Opening fees" or a “PII contribution".
This can make them look cheaper than other firms if you just look at their legal fees, but you might end up paying a lot more when you get your final quote.
🔍 Disbursements
Conveyancing disbursements are payments that your conveyancer makes to third parties on your behalf as part of the conveyancing process. Third parties include the local authorities, the Land Registry, and online search providers. These are generally separated from the legal fees in quotes or invoices.
Below are the typical disbursements you will need to pay.
📮 Stamp Duty
The largest disbursement you typically pay is Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT). If you are in Wales, this is called Land Transaction Tax (LTT); in Scotland, it’s called Land and Building Transaction Tax (LBTT). This is a tax paid to the government on property purchases.
The amount you pay varies by property price. In England, you won’t need to pay this if the property you are buying is less than £250k (or £425k as an FTB). However, from April 1st, 2024, this lower limit will change to £125k (or £300k for FTBs).
Use our calculator below to determine how much you will need to pay.
🧮 Stamp Duty Calculator
📄 HM Land Registry Fees
The next largest disbursement is typically the Land Registry Registration services fee. This is a fee paid to the Land Registry to update the title deeds of the property you buy. The Land Registry does admin work to maintain a database of all the properties in England & Wales and charges for this service.
This fee increases with property price and is higher if the property is a new build, as it cannot be registered electronically. In 2024, the price ranges from £20-500 for a pre-owned property and £45-1,105 for a new build.
Use our calculator below to determine how much you will need to pay.
📋 Land Registry Fee Calculator
🔎 Searches
Your conveyancer will request various searches be performed to ensure you have all the information about your new property and there are no nasty surprises.
These are the main searches that they will run:
Search
Price
The Local Council will check things like any planning decisions that could affect the property or building regulations that apply. Prices for these searches vary by council.
This will check for the risk to the property of various environmental factors. These include flood risk, ground stability, radon gas and nearby industrial uses.
This is to check with the water company that the property is connected to the main water supply and sewers. It will also highlight if there is a public sewer underneath the property.
Some searches are only needed in specific areas of the country (e.g. a mining search).
Additional searches might also be required to get more information if one of the above searches comes back with a problem.
TOTAL
£200-410
In most quotes, solicitors bundle all these searches up into a “Search pack" or group them all up into a “Searches" line in their quote. On average, you should expect to pay about £300 for searches. This will vary between £200-410 depending on where you are in the country.
🪪 ID & other checks
There is a legal requirement that conveyancers make sure that you are who you say you are and that the money you use to buy the property is not the proceeds of crime.
To do this, your conveyancer will do several checks and need you to provide them with documents such as ID and bank statements. Most conveyancers can do this digitally now, but some old-school conveyancers might still need you to post original paper copies.
The conveyancer must do these checks on everyone involved in the purchase. So, if you buy with a partner, you will be charged for two sets of ID, AML and bankruptcy checks.
Type of Check
Price
Conveyancers are required by law to verify the identity of everyone involved in a property purchase.
If you are getting a mortgage, your conveyancer will need to do a bankruptcy search to ensure you aren’t bankrupt or on the verge of bankruptcy.
Your conveyancer will need to prove that the person you are buying from is the property's legal owner. They do this by checking the title register and title plan at the Land Registry.
If you are lucky enough to be gifted some money that is being used for your purchase, your conveyancer is also legally required to verify the identity and do AML checks on everyone who gives you money.
Estate Agents are also legally obligated to do ID checks, so you might be asked to pay for two sets of ID checks. A conveyancer has told us that this is because their indemnity insurance (which protects them if they make a mistake with ID checks and are fined) requires that they use specific software to check IDs.
💸 Money Transfers
When you pay your deposit, you pay it to your conveyancer rather than directly to the seller. They must pay the bank a telegraphic transfer (TT) fee when they transfer it.
This cost is passed on to you and is typically £40-50.
Some conveyancers might also charge you a fee for the admin work of organising this transfer, so you may also see this in their additional fees on your quote or invoice.
🏢 Leasehold Disbursements
If you are buying a leasehold property (most flats, but also some houses), your solicitor will need to request an official copy of the lease and a management pack. This pack contains information about service charges, ground rent, upcoming maintenance work, etc. The seller will typically pay to request this.
Depending on the terms of your lease, you may need to pay the freeholder to update various documents. After reviewing the lease and the management pack, your conveyancer will know what these are and how much they will cost. This means your final bill may be different from your initial quote.
Some of these disbursements also apply if you buy a freehold property on a privately managed estate (therefore, it has a management company).
The below list contains the most common leasehold disbursements. Still, there may be others that apply depending on the specific terms of the lease.
Leasehold Disbursement
Price
Most leases require that the freeholder is notified that the lease has been transferred (or assigned) to someone new. This is basically a fee to update their records.
You might also need to notify the freeholder of a new mortgage on the property (if you’re getting a mortgage).
This is the admin costs involved with the freeholder to draft the contract (or certificate) that you sign confirming you will pay service charges and comply with the lease terms. This might also be done using a “Certificate of Compliance".
In some cases, you might be able to negotiate with the seller who pays for these disbursements. Your solicitor should be able to inform you if negotiation is possible.
🛡️ Indemnity Insurance
If your conveyancer uncovers a legal defect with the property, they might suggest you take out indemnity insurance. This insurance will cover any financial losses you have to pay due to the defect in future. Our guide to legal defects explains some common defects where you might need to take out indemnity insurance.
The cost of indemnity insurance will vary by how severe the problem is and how likely it is to be an issue in the future. Chancel repair liability insurance should only be about £25, but something like insurance to cover missing planning permission might cost £300+.
Your solicitor may also charge you an additional legal fee for the time they spend working with the insurance company to organise the insurance. Our research shows this is typically about £60-80 per indemnity policy.
VAT on Disbursements
Historically, solicitors have not charged VAT on disbursements. However, VAT is complicated, and the recent guidance from the Law Society and HMRC could be clearer. Some solicitors and conveyancing firms may charge you VAT on some disbursements, while others won’t.
Stamp duty and the Land Registry fees should not have VAT charged to you, but all the other disbursements could do. A general rule of thumb is that if your conveyancer gives you advice based on the output of the disbursement, such as a document, the outputs of a disbursement are used by your conveyancer to inform their advice or provide their legal services, then they will charge you VAT.
Make sure you check the quote from your conveyancer and raise any questions if it needs to be clarified if VAT is being applied.
🏡 Additional Legal Fees
Base legal fees cover your conveyancer’s salary for a straightforward property transaction. But any slight complication that will take more of your conveyancer's time will cost you more. These costs are referred to as "additional legal fees".
Some conveyancers are pretty sneaky and put fees that should be in their base legal fees into “additional legal fees", making their main fees look really low and attractive. We’ve broken out the most common of these in our hidden fees section.
📄 List of Additional Fees
Below, we have shown the most common additional legal fees affecting buyers.
We have included VAT in all our numbers to make things easier to understand; for example, if something costs £50 + VAT of 20% (£10), we will show it as £60.
Additional Legal Fee
Price (incl VAT)
This might also be called “acting for your lender".
You’ll need a mortgage unless you are a cash buyer. Conveyancers may charge extra fees for the administrative work involved in dealing with your mortgage.
Some conveyancers include this in their base legal fees if they know you are getting a mortgage, so if you don’t see it on a quote, that might be where it is!
Even if you aren’t paying Stamp Duty, your conveyancer must fill in and lodge the form with the Land Registry if the property purchase price is over £40,000.
This is another charge that many conveyancers will include in their base legal fees, but others have as an additional fee. See our hidden fees section for more of these!
If you have received money from family or friends that is being used for your deposit, conveyancers need to do some work to ensure this gift is all above board.
Conveyancers may charge more if the person giving you money is outside of the UK or planning to live in the house with you (but does not have any ownership of the property).
If the gifted amount is small, you might consider using it to pay for furniture or legal fees instead of using it for a deposit to avoid this cost.
If you are not a resident of the UK, your conveyancer has to do additional due diligence to verify your identity and the source of funds being used for the transaction.
If you are not sure if you qualify as a UK resident, ask the conveyancer if this will apply to you!
When using a Lifetime or Help to Buy ISA, additional administrative work is involved in claiming the government bonus. Conveyancers must coordinate with the ISA provider to verify the funds and process the bonus payment.
Purchasing a shared ownership property involves additional legal work due to the complexities of shared ownership agreements. This includes reviewing the terms of the shared ownership lease and liaising with the housing association.
For New Build properties, conveyancers must check for any restrictions or covenants imposed by the developer and ensure compliance with building regulations and NHBC or similar guarantees.
For properties in buildings over 11 metres or five stories high, additional legal work is needed to ensure compliance with the Building Safety Act. This act came about as a response to concerns raised by the Grenfell Tower fire.
The work required includes verifying fire safety measures, checking cladding issues, and ensuring the building meets the necessary safety standards.
Not all Lawyers deal with this regularly, so it can get VERY expensive and take a long time.
When purchasing a property through the Right to Buy scheme, there are additional legal considerations and admin. Conveyancers must handle the application process, verify eligibility, and ensure all legal documentation meets the scheme's requirements.
If the property is not registered with the Land Registry, conveyancers must conduct extra admin work to register it. This work involves checking historical deeds, verifying ownership, and completing the registration process with the Land Registry.
If the property you are buying hasn’t been bought or sold since 1990 (when the law changed), it’s likely to be unregistered.
If you buy a newly built property, this probably won’t apply as the developer should have registered the property.
If you are buying with someone else (and aren’t married), you might get a Declaration of Trust, which documents each person's share in the property. This requires additional drafting and legal work for your conveyancer.
This is optional, but when buying a home, it can also be a good time to write (or rewrite) your will.
For example, if you are buying a house with a partner you are not married to, they won’t automatically inherit the house if you pass away.
Islamic mortgages, which comply with Sharia law, involve unique structures that require additional legal work.
Not all Conveyancers are familiar with the legal requirements of Islamic mortgages, so be sure to discuss this with solicitors before instructing them if you need this.
Indemnity policies protect against potential legal defects or other issues and require extra admin for conveyancers to set up. This includes identifying the need for a policy, arranging the coverage, and ensuring the policy terms adequately protect the buyer.
You won’t see this on an initial quote as your solicitor won’t know what Indemnity Policies are required at the start of the process.
If the property you are buying has leased solar panels, your conveyancer will need to review the lease terms, verify ownership and rights, and ensure there are no legal impediments affecting the property’s sale or use.
If the solar panels are owned and not leased, then this will not apply.
If your transaction takes much longer than expected or needs to be completed on an accelerated timeline, your conveyancer will charge you additional fees for the required time.
Your conveyancer probably won’t know about this upfront (unless you ask for an expedited transaction), but they should email you an update and a price once they know this is going to apply.
Additional legal work is required to handle deeds of covenant, which are often necessary for leasehold properties. This involves reviewing the lease terms, obtaining necessary consents from the landlord or freeholder, and ensuring compliance with lease conditions.
We found a wide range of prices, some of which were very high. We think this is because the cost is difficult to estimate as the work required varies greatly by freeholder.
A Deed of Variation is needed if there are changes to the lease terms and requires extra legal work. Conveyancers must draft the deed, negotiate terms with the freeholder, and ensure the variations are legally binding and properly recorded.
Again, this one has a wide variety of prices as the cost is difficult for conveyancers to estimate before they’ve seen the lease.
If you are purchasing a property to rent out, conveyancers will charge extra for the work involved in ensuring compliance with buy-to-let regulations.
Purchasing a property through a limited company involves extra legal steps and documentation.
Conveyancers must verify the company's legal standing, ensure compliance with corporate regulations, and handle additional company ownership and financing paperwork.
🕵️ Hidden Fees
In our research, we came across a few sneaky additional fees, which we think should be included in the base legal fees. If you are quoted a price with legal fees that seems too good to be true, keep an eye out for these hidden additional fees!
Additional Legal Fee
Price (incl VAT)
Some conveyancers charge a contribution towards their Personal Indemnity Insurance (PII). Most firms will include this in their base legal fees as it’s just a cost of doing business for any lawyer.
Most conveyancers will include this in their base legal fees, as it happens in every transaction. The only reason not to include it in the base fees is to make their legal fees look cheaper. Another name we've seen for this is a "Digital Onboarding fee".
Notably, for some “no sale, no fee" conveyancers, this file opening fee will still be charged if the sale doesn’t complete; only the base legal fees aren’t charged. Check the fine print if this might be the case for you.
Any admin fees such as postage, photocopying, or phone call fees should really be included in base legal fees.
However, there are some instances where this might be reasonable, for example, if you are abroad and your solicitor needs to do lots of international posting/phone calls as part of your transaction.
After completing your transaction, your conveyancer must store your legal file for several years. This is standard practice and, as a result, should be included in their base legal fees.
It can be slightly more work for a solicitor to exchange and complete on the same day, so this maybe isn’t that sneaky. However, some solicitors we’ve found have priced this at £400+, which we think is unreasonable.
We’ve also found solicitors who charge this fee if exchange and completion are within 5 days, so keep an eye out for that too.
Want to compare conveyancing fees?
Answer a few questions and get personalised quotes from our approved solicitors or licensed conveyancers.
Note: We are paid a referral fee if you use one of our recommended conveyancers; this doesn't affect the price you pay and helps keep Fairy Godmother free for everyone.
😤 Complaints
If you think your solicitor has charged you unfairly, you have the right to complain.
Your first step should be to raise a formal complaint with your solicitor, and then if that’s not resolved in 8 weeks, you should talk to the Legal Ombudsman. The Ombudsman has a good guide on how to complain to a legal service provider, which includes advice and template letters.
Conclusion
The world of conveyancing fees and disbursements can be confusing, but hopefully, this guide has helped clarify things for you.
To summarise, our advice for you when you are comparing conveyancing fees is:
- If it looks too good to be true, it probably is!
- Compare the whole quote, including disbursements and additional legal fees that apply to you.
- If you aren’t sure if an additional fee applies to you, ask the solicitor!
- Watch out for the hidden additional legal fees we mentioned.
📚 Further Reading
Here are some other guides which you might find helpful:
