Fees and Costs to Expect in a Conveyancing Quote

Conveyancing quotes are easy to find once you know where to look. Purchasing a home especially if it’s your first time is a major decision, and therefore it is imperative that the property conveyancing is done right and most of all cost efficient. Since the home loan is burdensome enough, the last thing you would want to do is run up extravagant legal costs and conveyancing fees.

Fees for property conveyancing vary and it really depend on the solicitor, or the firm, and the amount of work to be done. So in your first consultation with your house buying solicitor it is important that you ask for a complete breakdown of conveyancing fees that apply to your case. It is also advised that you should obtain at least three quotes from different companies. Make sure that you know the costs and fees that are included in a conveyancing quote.

In property conveyancing, the expenses that you basically need to pay are divided into two categories: the legal costs and the conveyancing fees.

In standard practice, the legal cost is what the conveyancers charge for the amount of time they’re going to use for reviewing legal documents and attending to the conveyancing process. The charges can be based on an hourly rate or a fixed rate.

Conveyancing fees, on the other hand are the fees payable, often to third parties for items. This could include legal searches, survey reports, building reports, pest reports, engineers certificates, certificates from the local councils and other authorities, certificates from government departments, fees payable to register documents, fees payable for duties and taxes, telephone call costs, costs of sending a fax, costs involved in storing your file information, bank fees related to your transaction, costs of using paper to create correspondence and documents, stamps, even photocopying fees, and the like.

The aforementioned items are all required for the conveyancing process but they are not part of the labor component. They are additional items. Often these are referred to as disbursements being money that has been disbursed on behalf of the client for the conveyancing transaction.

A lot of the conveyancing fees payable for certificates and the like are payable to government departments and are fixed fees and cannot be negotiated. You should carefully check the fees that are quoted as some firms charge a high amount for photocopying for instance. You will be surprised sometimes at how the cost of disbursements can add up. Even small things like photocopying can quickly become expensive if contracts need to be photocopied, especially if they need to be photocopied more than once!

On top of everything, there is also an indemnity fee. The conveyancer may state that if any unforeseen problems arise these will be dealt with through an extra charge. Most conveyancers will ask for payment of land registry and local authority search fees in advance. The balance will be due when you’ve completed on your home.

Residential property conveyancing is generally not as complex as commercial conveyancing and is usually calculated on a fixed rate. However, the cost will also depend on whether your property is leasehold or freehold. Leasehold properties will cost more as they involve additional work checking the lease.