Estimate the full cost of conveyancing when buying, selling, or buying and selling a UK property at the same time. Enter the property price, choose freehold or leasehold, say whether it's a new build and whether you're using a mortgage, and get a transparent breakdown of the solicitor's legal fee, every disbursement (including the official HM Land Registry registration fee), and 20% VAT where it genuinely applies — so you know what to budget for before you instruct a conveyancer.
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Solicitor legal fees vary significantly between firms and are shown here as typical, representative market estimates only — they are not quotes. Always get a written, itemised quote from a regulated solicitor or licensed conveyancer before instructing them, and confirm exactly which items carry VAT. Land Registry fee bands and the 20% VAT rate shown are the official current figures for England & Wales; Scotland and Northern Ireland figures are approximate estimates only, as their registration bodies (Registers of Scotland and Land Registry NI respectively) use different fee scales not modelled in detail here.
Conveyancing is the legal process of transferring ownership of property from one person to another. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland it's carried out by a solicitor or a licensed conveyancer; in Scotland it's handled by a solicitor acting under Scots property law. It covers everything from the point your offer is accepted (or you accept one) through to completion, when money changes hands and keys are handed over, and beyond, into post-completion registration of the new ownership.
Conveyancing isn't optional — you can't legally buy or sell a property without it, even if you choose to do some of the legwork yourself. Almost everyone instructs a professional, partly because mortgage lenders generally require it, and partly because the legal and financial risks of getting it wrong (unpaid debts attached to the property, undisclosed boundary disputes, missing planning permission) can be serious and expensive.
On a purchase, your solicitor reviews the draft contract and title documents, raises enquiries with the seller's solicitor, orders and reviews searches (local authority, environmental, water and drainage, and others relevant to the property), checks the terms of your mortgage offer if you have one, reports to you on everything they've found, and handles the exchange of contracts and completion. They also calculate and pay any Stamp Duty Land Tax (or LBTT in Scotland, LTT in Wales) due, and register your ownership with HM Land Registry (or the equivalent body).
On a sale, your solicitor obtains your title information and any outstanding mortgage redemption figure, answers the buyer's solicitor's enquiries, prepares the draft contract, and arranges for your existing mortgage to be repaid from the sale proceeds on completion.
Virtually all residential conveyancing in the UK today is quoted as a fixed fee for the legal work, agreed before you instruct the firm, with disbursements billed separately and passed through at cost. This gives you cost certainty for a standard transaction. Hourly billing is unusual for residential conveyancing and tends to appear only in complex, unusual, or commercial transactions (for example, a complicated leasehold extension or a transaction with legal title defects). If a firm proposes hourly billing for an ordinary purchase or sale, ask whether they can instead offer a fixed fee, or at minimum a capped estimate.
Disbursements are costs your solicitor pays to third parties on your behalf during the transaction — for example the Land Registry registration fee, search fees paid to a local authority or search provider, and the fee charged by an ID verification service. Your solicitor passes these on to you at (or close to) cost; they aren't part of the solicitor's own profit on the file. They're shown as a separate line from the legal fee because, legally and for VAT purposes, a genuine disbursement is treated differently from the solicitor's own taxable supply of legal services — though in practice some items marketed as "disbursements" (such as a bank transfer fee) are, strictly, part of the firm's own service and can carry VAT. Always ask your solicitor for an itemised quote showing which figures include VAT.
HM Land Registry charges a statutory fee to register a change of ownership (or a new mortgage) against a property's title in England and Wales. The fee is banded by the value of the property or transaction and set out in the Land Registration Fee Order. Under the current Scale 1 fee scale — effective since 9 December 2024 and used for transfers for value and for first registrations — the portal/electronic submission fee (used by almost all conveyancers) is: £20 up to £80,000; £40 from £80,001 to £100,000; £100 from £100,001 to £200,000; £150 from £200,001 to £500,000; £295 from £500,001 to £1,000,000; and £500 above £1,000,000. This fee is not subject to VAT, and it's always paid by the buyer, never the seller.
A new build purchase is usually treated as a compulsory first registration (the land or flat wasn't separately registered before), but this is still charged at the full Scale 1 rate shown above — the same banded fee as any other purchase at the same price. A lower, 25%-discounted Scale 1 rate exists only for genuinely voluntary first registrations made with no underlying sale (for example, registering inherited unregistered land), which doesn't apply to a new build bought in the ordinary way. This calculator therefore applies the same official Scale 1 bands whether or not you select "New build".
A local authority search (the LLC1 and CON29 forms) asks the council about planning history, building regulations approvals, road adoption status, enforcement notices, conservation areas and similar matters. An environmental search checks for contaminated land, flood risk and other hazards. A water and drainage search confirms whether the property is connected to the public mains water and sewerage network and whether any public drains cross the property. Together these typically cost somewhere in the region of £150-£350 depending on the council and search provider, and are only commissioned on the buying side of a transaction.
Leasehold transactions involve extra work: reviewing the lease for restrictive or onerous terms, checking ground rent and service charge provisions, raising enquiries with the freeholder or managing agent, and — on a sale — obtaining a leasehold management information pack (sometimes called an LPE1) to give to the buyer's solicitor. This additional work typically adds somewhere around £200-£500 in combined extra legal fee and management pack/admin disbursement, compared with an equivalent freehold transaction. This calculator reflects that with a leasehold legal-fee uplift and a separate "Leasehold Admin Fee" disbursement line whenever Leasehold is selected.
A simple freehold purchase with no onward chain, a straightforward survey, and a prompt local authority search typically completes in around 8-12 weeks from offer acceptance. Leasehold purchases usually take longer because of the extra enquiries and management pack, and a transaction with a long property chain, slow searches, or issues raised during due diligence can easily stretch to 3-6 months or more. Using a mortgage adds the time needed for the lender's valuation and formal mortgage offer, though this usually runs in parallel with the rest of the process rather than adding to it directly.
Many residential conveyancing firms in England & Wales offer a "no sale, no fee" promise: if your purchase or sale falls through before completion, through no fault of your own, you don't pay their legal fee. This is a competitive, marketing-driven arrangement rather than a legal requirement, so terms vary between firms — some still charge for disbursements already incurred (such as a search that's already been ordered and paid for), and some only waive part of the fee. Always read the engagement letter carefully and ask exactly what "no sale, no fee" does and doesn't cover before instructing a firm.
Buying a £300,000 freehold house in England, with a mortgage, not a new build: a typical legal fee of around £1,100 (ex VAT), plus VAT of £260 (20% on the £1,100 legal fee and the £200 mortgage lender acting fee combined), plus disbursements of around £150 (local authority search), £95 (environmental/water search), £150 (Land Registry fee, £200,001-£500,000 band), £40 (bank transfer fee) and £30 (ID check) — a disbursements total of around £465 — plus the £200 lender acting fee itself. All-in estimated total: roughly £2,025. Your own figures will differ based on your solicitor's actual quote and your property's exact price.
VAT is charged at the standard rate of 20% on a solicitor's own professional fee and on a mortgage lender's acting fee, because these are taxable services, not genuine disbursements. Land Registry fees are not subject to VAT. Other items often described as disbursements — such as the fee for arranging a bank transfer (CHAPS/telegraphic transfer) — are, under current HMRC guidance, usually treated as part of the solicitor's own taxable supply rather than a true disbursement, and can therefore carry VAT depending on how an individual firm bills it. This calculator applies VAT only to the legal fee and the mortgage lender acting fee for clarity, and flags this simplification in the disclaimer — always check your own solicitor's itemised VAT treatment.
When you buy with a mortgage, your solicitor usually also acts for your lender at the same time as acting for you, to confirm the property is good security for the loan and to register the lender's legal charge against the title. Lenders typically require a separate "acting for lender" fee for this, commonly in the region of £150-£300 plus VAT, in addition to your own legal fee. A small number of lenders use a separate panel solicitor instead, in which case you may pay two sets of legal fees rather than one combined fee.
The Land Registry fee bands and VAT treatment in this calculator are based on verified, official HM Land Registry figures for England & Wales. Scotland's land register is run by Registers of Scotland, and Northern Ireland's by Land Registry NI (part of Land & Property Services) — both use their own separate fee scales, which differ from HM Land Registry's and are not modelled band-by-band here. If you select Scotland or Northern Ireland, this calculator reuses the same typical cost structure as an approximate like-for-like estimate and clearly labels the registration fee line as "estimated" rather than official — always check Registers of Scotland's or Land Registry NI's current fee tables, and get a quote from a solicitor qualified in that jurisdiction, for an exact figure.
UK solicitors and conveyancers are legally required, under anti-money-laundering (AML) regulations, to verify the identity and source of funds of everyone involved in a property transaction before they can act for them. This usually involves an electronic identity check (sometimes alongside certified copies of passports or driving licences), typically costing somewhere around £15-£30 per person. It's billed as a disbursement because the fee is paid to a third-party identity verification provider, even though the underlying requirement comes from the solicitor's own regulatory obligations rather than from you directly.
The HM Land Registry fee bands used in this calculator are taken directly from the official government fee schedule. For the definitive figures and guidance on choosing and working with a conveyancer, always refer to the official sources below rather than third-party summaries: