Conveyancing quotes are notoriously hard to compare. Two firms can list the same legal fee and have £500 difference in total once disbursements and supplements land. This calculator builds a clean total for each quote and shows you the gap. Enter every line item from both written quotes — not just the headline.

How the calculator builds each total

The calculator combines what you enter line by line into a single total for each quote. The legal fee gets VAT applied automatically (20%). Disbursements (search pack, Land Registry, bank transfer, ID verification) do not attract additional VAT because they're already inclusive in your quote. The mortgage handling fee and "additional fees" line have VAT applied unless they're VAT-exempt (most conveyancer fees are not exempt).

SDLT is calculated separately. It depends only on the property price and your buyer type — see our SDLT calculator for the full band breakdown. SDLT is shown in the comparison so you see the full out-of-pocket cost, but the SDLT itself does not differ between Quote A and Quote B.

What to put in each line

Legal fee

The fee the conveyancing firm charges for its own work, excluding VAT. Get this from the quote document — make sure you're reading the pre-VAT figure if the quote splits it out, or back it out from "£X including VAT" by dividing by 1.2.

Search pack

The bundle of third-party searches — local authority, drainage and water, environmental, chancel, mining where required. These are pass-through costs the firm pays to councils and search providers. Should be the same across firms for the same property. If one quote shows £180 and another shows £340, ask the cheaper firm what they're including. See our property searches explained guide for what each search contains.

Land Registry fee

A government fee for registering the transfer of ownership. Tiered by property price — £20 for properties up to £80k, £40 up to £100k, £100 up to £200k, £200 up to £500k, £300 up to £1m, £500 up to £2m, £1,105 above £2m (electronic application fees). Should be identical across firms.

Bank transfer fee

Per-transfer charge of £30-£45. Most transactions need 1-2 transfers (completion funds; lender-to-conveyancer for mortgage). Sometimes 3-4 in chain transactions.

ID verification

Anti-money-laundering ID check. £10-£30 per buyer using electronic ID, slightly more with manual verification. Some firms include in the legal fee; many don't.

Mortgage handling fee

Where the firm acts for your lender as well as you, the mortgage handling fee covers preparing the legal charge, drafting certificate of title, reporting to the lender on completion. £100-£250 typical. Confirm whether each quote includes or excludes this.

Additional fees

Anything bespoke to your transaction: leasehold supplement (£200-£500), new-build supplement (£200-£600), help-to-buy/shared ownership (£150-£400), gifted deposit handling (£75-£200), indemnity policy administration (£50-£100), expedited completion (£200-£400). Add up everything that applies and enter the total.

Worked example — £350k freehold purchase

Quote A — local high-street firm: legal fee £1,250 + VAT, mortgage handling £195, bank transfer £42, ID £25, no additional fees, search pack £340, Land Registry £135. Total £2,237.

Quote B — online firm: legal fee £795 + VAT, mortgage handling £125, bank transfer £30, ID £15, no additional fees, search pack £340, Land Registry £135. Total £1,565.

Difference £672. Quote B is 30% cheaper. For a standard buyer, SDLT on £350k is £7,500. Add that to both and the grand total is £9,737 vs £9,065 — about 7% saving on the total transaction cost. Worth having; but weigh the online vs high-street trade-offs covered in our online vs high-street guide before deciding on cost alone.

Worked example — £450k leasehold purchase

Quote A — high-street: legal fee £1,395 + VAT, mortgage handling £200, bank transfer £42, ID £25, leasehold supplement £350, search pack £340, Land Registry £135. Total £2,766.

Quote B — online firm: legal fee £849 + VAT, mortgage handling £125, bank transfer £30, ID £15, leasehold supplement £450, search pack £340, Land Registry £135. Total £1,873 — but note the online firm has a higher leasehold supplement, eating £100 of the saving.

Difference £893. Online is 32% cheaper on legal cost. But for a complex leasehold transaction, the high-street firm's experience may save more than £893 in delays or escalation costs over the full transaction. See the online vs high-street case studies for decision guidance.

Worked example — £675k freehold purchase, no chain

Quote A — high-street: legal fee £1,550 + VAT, mortgage handling £225, bank transfer £42, ID £25, no additional, search pack £375, Land Registry £300. Total £2,827.

Quote B — online firm: legal fee £895 + VAT, mortgage handling £150, bank transfer £30, ID £15, no additional, search pack £375, Land Registry £300. Total £1,944.

Difference £883. Online is 31% cheaper. For a vanilla freehold purchase with no chain, the online saving is cleanly worth taking.

Comparison traps to avoid

VAT confusion

Some quotes show legal fee inclusive of VAT, some show excluding VAT. The calculator expects excluding-VAT figures for the legal fee. If your quote shows £954 inclusive of VAT, divide by 1.2 to get £795 excluding VAT.

Disbursements bundled differently

Some firms include bank transfer fees in the legal fee; some show them separately. If you double-count, the comparison is wrong. Read each quote line by line.

Missing supplements

An online firm may quote a £795 legal fee for "standard freehold" without mentioning that your purchase is leasehold. Confirm the quote applies to your specific tenure and property type.

Vague "additional fees may apply"

Any quote with this phrase has hidden items waiting. Push for specifics — what additional fees, in what circumstances, at what cost.

The 3-quote rule

Get three quotes, not two. Two quotes give you a binary choice with no context for whether either is reasonable. Three quotes show you the market. The middle quote is usually close to fair; outliers reveal who is over- or under-pricing.

Negotiating the legal fee

Most firms will discount 10-20% to win the instruction. Forward the lowest written quote to your preferred firm and ask if they can match. Don't try to negotiate disbursements — those are pass-through costs.

What the calculator doesn't capture

• Service quality — see the online vs high-street guide.
• Response time and escalation paths.
• Local knowledge for unusual postcodes.
• Whether the firm is on your lender's panel — confirm before instructing.
• Reviews and complaint history — read at least 30 reviews before instructing.

How conveyancing pricing varies by region in 2026

Conveyancing pricing isn't uniform across the UK. London and the South East run roughly 15-25% above national averages, partly because property values are higher (work scales modestly with price), partly because the property law involved is often more complex (more leasehold, more historic title, more chain complexity). The North East and parts of Wales typically come in cheapest. Online firms are largely region-agnostic and quote uniform legal fees regardless of where the property sits — the only variation is the local authority search fee.

Region	Typical legal fee	Search pack
London	£1,400-£1,800	£380-£480
South East / South West	£1,150-£1,500	£300-£400
Midlands	£950-£1,300	£280-£370
North West / Yorkshire	£900-£1,250	£270-£360
North East	£850-£1,200	£260-£350
Wales	£900-£1,300	£280-£380
Scotland (LBTT)	£1,000-£1,400	different system
Northern Ireland	£950-£1,350	different system

Scotland uses LBTT (Land and Buildings Transaction Tax) instead of SDLT, and Wales uses LTT (Land Transaction Tax) — both calculated at different rates from English SDLT. Conveyancing legal fees remain broadly comparable across UK jurisdictions; what changes is the property tax line.

What changes the conveyancer can't change

The cheapest conveyancer cannot reduce these costs because they are not their fees — they're third-party costs set by government, local authorities, or utilities.

• SDLT — set by HMRC, depends only on price and buyer type.
• Land Registry fee — set by government tier table.
• Local authority search fee — set by each council.
• Water and drainage search fee — set by each water company.
• Environmental search fee — set by the search provider (limited competition).
• Coal Authority and other mining searches — set by The Coal Authority.

What a conveyancer can change is their own legal fee, their mortgage handling fee, and whether they pass disbursements through at cost or with a small admin uplift. The cleanest comparison fixes the disbursements and compares only the controllable items.

Reading the quote document — what to focus on

Different firms format quotes differently. Some lead with the legal fee; some lead with a "total cost including disbursements" figure; some leave the legal fee for the second page. Whatever the format, your job is to extract eight numbers and put them in this calculator:

1. Legal fee — excluding VAT, post-discount.
2. Search pack — total disbursements for searches.
3. Land Registry fee — the buyer's Land Registry transfer fee.
4. Bank transfer fee — per-transfer charge × number of transfers expected.
5. ID verification — per buyer, total.
6. Mortgage handling fee — only if you're using a mortgage.
7. Additional fees — leasehold supplement, gifted deposit, etc.
8. Property price — used for SDLT context.

If any of these numbers aren't on the quote, ask. Don't guess. A quote that doesn't list a number you need is incomplete.

What the conveyancer's quality saves vs costs you

A skilled conveyancer can save you tens of thousands of pounds compared to a careless one. Examples from real 2024-2026 cases:

• Spotting a 10-year doubling ground rent clause before exchange — avoided £35k in lifetime ground rent inflation.
• Identifying that an "extension" was built without building regs sign-off — required £180 indemnity policy now, would have been £8k of remediation if discovered post-completion.
• Insisting on a deed of variation for a defective lease — saved a future buyer from refusing the property.
• Catching that the searched address didn't match the title plan — would have resulted in registering the wrong property.
• Negotiating a £1,200 retention against snagging work on a new-build — money that wouldn't have been retrievable post-completion.

None of these are visible in the quote document. They are the reason that the cheapest quote is rarely the right choice. Aim for a sensible price among reputable, regulated firms — not the floor of the market.

Pre-instruction checklist

1. Three written, itemised quotes within 24 hours of offer accepted.
2. SRA or CLC regulation number confirmed for each firm.
3. Lender panel status confirmed.
4. Fixed fee confirmed in writing — with the carve-out list.
5. Average case-handler caseload asked (decline if > 300).
6. 30+ recent reviews read.
7. Comparison entered in this calculator.
8. Decision and instruction same day.

Frequently asked questions

How do I compare two conveyancing quotes?

Itemise each line — don't compare on legal fee alone. Bank transfer, ID, mortgage handling, supplements often add £150-£400 to one quote and not the other.

Which costs are the same across all conveyancers?

Land Registry, SDLT, and search pack costs — these are pass-through. Legal fee, mortgage handling, bank transfer, and ID vary by firm.

What additional fees should I include?

Leasehold (£200-£500), new-build (£200-£600), help-to-buy/shared ownership (£150-£400), gifted deposit (£75-£200), indemnity admin (£50-£100), expedited completion (£200-£400).

What's a typical total UK conveyancing cost in 2026?

£1,800-£2,500 total for a £350k freehold purchase with mortgage. Add £200-£500 leasehold supplement where applicable. SDLT on top.

How much can I save by choosing the cheaper quote?

£200-£600 between two reputable firms. £400-£800 online vs high-street. Real saving — but weigh quality, not cost alone.

Should I include SDLT in the comparison?

SDLT is the same regardless of conveyancer. Shown for total cost context only — doesn't differ between quotes.

How accurate is this calculator?

It totals exactly what you enter — it cannot verify whether a quote has hidden items. Ask each firm for a fully itemised quote.

What VAT does and doesn't apply to

A persistent area of confusion in conveyancing quotes is which items attract VAT. The calculator handles this for you, but it's worth knowing the rules. UK conveyancing legal fees are standard-rated for VAT (20%) — the fee shown plus VAT. So is the mortgage handling fee, ID verification fee, and most "additional fee" categories charged by the firm itself.

Disbursements paid through to third parties — local authority searches, drainage and water searches, environmental searches, Land Registry fees, bank transfer fees — are not subject to additional VAT because they're outside the supply of legal services. If a firm shows VAT on a Land Registry fee, that's an error to query.

SDLT is a tax in its own right and not subject to VAT. Same for LBTT in Scotland and LTT in Wales. The calculator treats these correctly.

Special pricing scenarios

Combined sale and purchase

Buyers who are simultaneously selling another property typically receive a 15-25% discount on combined fees. The discount reflects shared overhead — one ID check, one source- of-funds verification, one client meeting. Confirm the discount in the quote — some firms forget to apply it unless asked.

Cash purchases

Cash purchases save the mortgage handling fee (£100-£250) and typically also save one bank transfer fee. Total saving: £150-£350. The legal fee itself doesn't usually reduce for cash purchases — the conveyancing work involved is roughly the same.

Right-to-buy and shared ownership

These have specific supplements because of the second contract with the local authority or housing association. Right-to-buy: £200-£350. Shared ownership: £250-£450. Include these in the additional fees field.

Buy-to-let purchases

BTL legal fees are typically 10-20% higher than residential because of the lender's bespoke requirements and the additional declarations needed. The additional property SDLT surcharge (5% on top of standard bands) is the bigger cost difference — see our BTL SDLT calculator. Include any BTL surcharge in the additional fees field.

When the calculator gives a counter-intuitive answer

Occasionally the result will show one quote as "cheaper" when it looks expensive on the legal fee. The most common reasons: higher legal fee but lower mortgage handling, lower search pack (different council), no leasehold supplement vs the other quote's leasehold supplement. The calculator is right; the quote you instinctively prefer may not be the cheaper one after all items are loaded.

Counter-intuitive answers are useful — they reveal where quotes hide costs. If the calculator surprises you, walk through each line input and check the quote document carefully. You may need to call the firm and ask whether an item is genuinely excluded or just not yet quoted.

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Last reviewed: 23 June 2026.