Conveyancing Explained

October 16, 2009

I know when you read my next sentence, you’re unlikely to be impressed. The old maxim “You get what you pay for” applies to a conveyancing service, just like any other.

I know everyone nowadays wants the cheapest deal and that people think solicitors are grossly overpriced in what they charge for fees. That may be true of some solicitors, I’m sure, but if you actually saw the amount of work that your conveyancing solicitor actually does, then I believe you’d be more agreeable to paying a proper fee and not just using a cheap conveyancing service.

I would expect to pay from £300.00 upwards for a conveyancing solicitor’s fees alone. That being said, for a single transaction freehold purchase, I would not expect to pay more than £500.00 for the solicitors’ fees.

Remember that your conveyancing solicitor’s total quotation will also include third party fees, known as “disbursements”. You need to ask when getting a quote what the solicitor’s actual fee is.

On average, I would estimate that a conveyancing solicitor on a freehold purchase transaction, is likely to send and receive at least 40 letters and telephone calls and would spend at least 2 ½ hours working on your file throughout the whole of the transaction. When you look at the amount of work that should be done, you can see that really, conveyancing solicitors don’t actually charge that much in terms of their fee!

I do understand that people want to save money, I’m no different, but if you want a proper job to be done, then you need to pay a reasonable fee to your conveyancing solicitor and not just pick the cheap conveyancing quote. If your solicitor reduces his price too much, then it’s simply not cost effective for him to spend time on your file making sure everything is done properly and you’re more likely to be passed to an unqualified unsupervised fee earner. Corners can be cut, and you could simply end up with more problems in the future.

Obviously there is nothing wrong with wanting to get a good deal but cheap conveyancing companies are not likely to give you all the information you need about your new house because it takes too much time. Ring around your local solicitors by all means but see my separate article on “What to look for when getting a conveyancing quote” before you decide who to go with.