Conveyancing fees in 2026: what it costs to buy a home
Buying a home in England or Wales carries a layer of cost that sits on top of the deposit and the mortgage: conveyancing — the legal work of transferring ownership from seller to buyer. It is usually quoted as a single "fee", but it is really three separate things stacked together: the conveyancer's own professional charge, a set of third-party costs called disbursements, and the tax. For most buyers, the conveyancer's own fee turns out to be the smallest of the three.
Of the 737,746 standard residential sales recorded across England and Wales in 2025 (HM Land Registry Price Paid Data), more than half — 56.3% — fell between £200,000 and £500,000, the single largest price band. The national median sale price was £295,000. The breakdown below follows a buyer at that median price through the whole bill.
The three parts of a conveyancing bill
1. The legal (professional) fee. This is what a solicitor or licensed conveyancer charges for their own time and expertise. It is the only part of the bill the firm itself controls, and it varies widely — by firm, by region, by whether the property is freehold or leasehold, and by how complicated the transaction is. Under the Solicitors Regulation Authority's Transparency Rules, firms that offer residential conveyancing must publish their prices, precisely because there is no single market rate. Indicative quotes for a straightforward freehold purchase commonly sit in the region of £800 to £1,500 plus VAT, with leasehold purchases usually carrying a supplement of a few hundred pounds — but the only figure that counts is a written quote for the specific property.
2. Disbursements. These are costs the conveyancer pays to third parties on the buyer's behalf and passes on at cost: property searches, HM Land Registry fees, bankruptcy and identity checks, the bank-transfer fee, and any leasehold charges. They are largely fixed and predictable.
3. Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT). The tax on the purchase itself. For a home mover, this is usually the largest single line on the whole completion statement.
HM Land Registry fees: a fixed, published scale
When a sale completes, the new owner must be registered with HM Land Registry, and a registration fee is paid on a published scale based on the purchase price. For a standard purchase of an existing home — an electronic "transfer of whole" lodged through the official portal — the reduced fee applies:
| Purchase price | Registration fee (online, transfer of whole) |
|---|---|
| £0 – £80,000 | £20 |
| £80,001 – £100,000 | £40 |
| £100,001 – £200,000 | £100 |
| £200,001 – £500,000 | £150 |
| £500,001 – £1,000,000 | £295 |
| £1,000,001 and over | £500 |
These fees took effect on 9 December 2024 and still apply (HM Land Registry). A buyer at the £295,000 national median sits in the £200,001–£500,000 band and pays £150. The fee is higher for postal applications and for registrations that affect only part of a title — which includes new-build plots split from a larger site and the registration of leases — where the same bands run £45, £95, £230, £330, £655 and £1,105 instead.
Searches and the smaller disbursements
Before completion, the conveyancer orders searches to flag anything the buyer cannot see by viewing the property. The core ones are the local authority search (the LLC1 local land charges register plus the CON29 enquiries), a drainage and water search, and an environmental search. Local authority search fees are set by each council, so the combined search pack varies — commonly in the region of £250 to £450.
On top of that sit a handful of small fixed items: official copies of the title register and plan, a bankruptcy search (£2 per name searched), identity and anti-money-laundering checks, and the bank-transfer fee for sending the purchase money on completion. Together these usually add somewhere around £50 to £100.
Stamp duty: the line that dwarfs the rest
For a home mover, SDLT is almost always the biggest number on the page. Since 1 April 2025 the standard residential rates have been 0% up to £125,000, 2% on the slice from £125,001 to £250,000, 5% from £250,001 to £925,000, 10% to £1.5m and 12% above (HMRC). A mover buying at the £295,000 median pays £4,750.
First-time buyers buying their main residence pay nothing up to £300,000, then 5% on the slice to £500,000, with the relief withdrawn entirely above £500,000. Because 51.9% of all 2025 sales completed at or below £300,000, a first-time buyer at the median pays £0 SDLT — collapsing their conveyancing bill to the fees and disbursements alone. The detail of what changed in April 2025 is covered in our guide to the stamp duty changes since April 2025, and you can run any price through the stamp duty calculator to see the figure for a given situation. A conveyancer confirms the correct rate and any relief on completion.
The leasehold supplement
Around one in five buyers faces an extra set of costs: 156,191 of the 737,746 standard sales in 2025 (21.2%) were leasehold. A leasehold purchase typically adds a leasehold information pack from the freeholder or managing agent, plus notice-of-transfer and notice-of-charge fees and sometimes a deed of covenant or certificate of compliance — charges set by the freeholder, not the conveyancer, and often running to several hundred pounds in total. Whether a home is freehold or leasehold, and what that means for ongoing cost, is set out in our explainer on freehold versus leasehold.
A worked example: the £295,000 median home
| Line item | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Conveyancer's legal fee | £800–£1,500 + VAT |
| HM Land Registry registration fee | £150 |
| Local, water and environmental searches | £250–£450 |
| Official copies, bankruptcy & ID checks, bank transfer | £50–£100 |
| Sub-total before tax | ~£1,400–£2,500 |
| Stamp Duty Land Tax — first-time buyer | £0 |
| Stamp Duty Land Tax — home mover | £4,750 |
Legal fees and some search items carry VAT at 20%; stamp duty and HM Land Registry fees do not. The arithmetic shows the pattern: a first-time buyer at the median pays roughly £1,400 to £2,500 all-in, while a home mover pays roughly £6,200 to £7,250 — and almost the entire difference is the tax, not the legal work. The figure most buyers worry about, the solicitor's fee, is a relatively small and stable part of the total.
How the bill scales with price
The fee side of conveyancing is fairly flat. The legal fee rises only modestly with price, and the HM Land Registry fee moves up the published scale in steps — £150 across the whole £200,000-to-£500,000 band, then £295 from £500,001 to £1m. The tax side is what accelerates. At £500,000 a home mover's SDLT is £15,000; a first-time buyer's is £10,000 (relief is lost above £500,000). With 15.2% of 2025 sales falling in the £500,000-to-£1m band, a sizeable minority of buyers face a tax bill many times larger than every other line on the statement combined. The deposit, mortgage and other one-off costs of a purchase are gathered in our overview of the hidden costs of buying a house, and the deposit itself is covered in how much deposit you need.
See the full picture for a real street
Conveyancing is one slice of the true cost of owning a home — alongside the mortgage, council tax and energy bills that follow completion. Type a postcode into Homecost's true-cost tool to see what the homes on a given street last sold for and what they cost to run, or browse the rest of the buyer guides for the wider buying-cost picture. These figures draw on Homecost's analysis of 737,746 Land Registry sales recorded across England and Wales in 2025.
This is general information, not advice. Conveyancing quotes, search fees and tax treatment vary by firm, council and individual circumstances. Speak to a qualified adviser or conveyancer before acting.