Don't Cheap Out on Your Conveyancer
You'll spend months finding the right house, but most people spend about ten minutes choosing the person responsible for making sure they actually own it.
The difference between a mediocre conveyancer and a good one is the difference between a smooth completion and watching your chain implode. On a £1m property where you’re exchanging £100,000 in deposits and juggling moving vans, that £800 vs £2,000 conveyancing fee stops looking like something to optimize.
The unfortunate reality is that average conveyancer is mediocre - a consequence of conveyancing being one of the worst-paid areas of law. The majority of conveyancers will get your transaction over the line without disaster. But “without disaster” is a low bar. Excellence means catching the non-obvious issues: the missing building control certificates that’ll bite you when you sell, the covenant that limits your extension plans, the access rights you didn’t know existed.
Why a good conveyancer matters
The biggest difference is proactivity, a good conveyancer stays on-top of everything with a bias for action that drives the process forward. They’ll chase something before you need to chase them.
They’ll also know what’s normal and what’s not, a lot of the legal paperwork surrounding a property can be scary, you want someone who can walk you through what’s normal and can be easily dealt with via an indemnity vs someone who just marks everything up as a red flag with no differentiation about what you should actually worry about.
That expertise also means spotting risks, errors and omissions early, is there something in the property that didn’t get building regulation approval or are there any clauses in the contract that might trip you up when you come to sell in 10 years time?
If a solicitor misses something you might not realize the problem until it bites you years down the line.
And ultimately a good solicitor will tell you if they think you should walk away from a transaction. Conveyancers make less money if you walk than if you complete, so this requires a high-ethical standard where they’re putting your interests above their own.
How to evaluate a conveyancer
Who’s handling the transaction?
The single most important question: "Who specifically will be handling my file, and what's their current caseload?” - it’s critical to understand who’s going to be doing the actual work on your transaction and who you’ll be speaking with when you have questions.
A partner or senior solicitor handling 15-20 files will catch things a paralegal managing 50+ won't. They've seen enough transactions to know what's normal and what deserves scrutiny. When something unusual appears, they’ll have the judgment and authority to act on it.
The uncomfortable reality is that at many cheaper firms your £500k purchase is being handled by a 22-year-old paralegal earning minimum wage juggling 50 cases with minimal supervision (and already job-hunting for their next role). The qualified solicitor whose name is on the letterhead might spend 30 minutes total on your file.
That might be fine for a simple transaction with no complexities, but if you’re going to be spending a meaningful amount on a house it can be worth splashing out on hiring a conveyancer where you’ll have a partner at the firm leading on your transaction.
Speed vs Thoroughness
Fast conveyancers optimize for completion speed. Thorough conveyancers optimize for catching issues. You can have both, but expect to pay a premium for it.
For straightforward modern properties with clean title, speed might matter more. For period properties, complex ownership structures, or anything with listed status, you’ll want to optimize for thoroughness.
It’s good to ask “What’s your typical timeline from instruction to exchange?” - eight to twelve weeks is a reasonable timeframe. If they can’t give you an answer or tell you it’s going to be done in 4 weeks take it as a red flag.
You should also check on their current capacity and availability, if they’re about to go on holiday or are over capacity on workload and you want to exchange quickly then it might not be a good fit even if the conveyancer is otherwise great.
Local vs Remote
There’s no requirement to have a local conveyancer, if you’re living in an expensive part of the country you might choose a solicitor from a less expensive area.
If the vendor is using a local solicitor then having another local solicitor can be beneficial - there’s a good chance they’ll have worked with the other firm before on other transactions and will know the foibles of the other firm and have relationships there. A friendly call between two solicitors who know each other can often smooth over roadbumps; however avoid using the same solicitor’s firm as the seller, the risk of conflict of interest is too high.
While some more old-fashioned solicitors prefer to meet in person for signatures or document verification, there’s no legal reason why the entire transaction can’t be done remotely.
Conveyancing Firm vs Traditional Solicitors
Conveyancers can either work for specialist conveyancing firms or generalist solicitors that do a wide-range of legal work.
Dedicated conveyancing firms are cheaper and process-driven. They're set up for volume. Great for straightforward purchases. However they will have limited bandwidth and expertise for anything more complex
At high-volume transactional conveyancers, case handlers review case files on a set schedule such as once a week. So any emails from you or any updates from searches or the sellers solicitor won’t get picked up until your next scheduled review, this is very different from a client-focused firm where items are normally actioned within a matter of hours. These firms design their business model around minimizing the cost of every step of the process, so don’t expect to easily be able to get someone on the phone, they’re just not set up to allow for it.
Going for a firm where case-handlers or paralegals do the majority of the work will be cheaper, but you need to decide if you want to trade-off quality for price and make that a conscious decision.
Expertise for your type of purchase
It’s important to pick a conveyancer who has experience with your type of property, the legal paperwork for a 19th century listed freehold detached property is going to be different from a new build shared ownership leasehold flat.
While the fundamentals of a house transaction are the same in both cases a lot of the complexity that might arise come from the specifics of the property, whether that comes from historic covenants, listed building restrictions or leasehold terms.
In theory, any conveyancer can do the work required, but someone who has handled many similar properties will have far more context in knowing what’s normal and what to dig into which can help avoid mistakes.
Recommendations & Reviews
Most people leave positive reviews just because their house purchase completed, not because their conveyancer was actually good. They have no basis for comparison and often don’t realize if mistakes were made. Negative reviews are more informative, but firms with terrible service can still maintain 4+ star ratings because most clients don’t know enough to evaluate quality.
When reading reviews don’t just look at the stars, but read the reviews to see if clients have talked about how the conveyancer was proactive, dealt with problems or caught key issues.
Recommendations from friends and family can be a good place to start, but remember to make sure the solicitor is a good fit for you. The estate agent you’re buying through can also be a good source of recommendation as long as the referral is genuine and the agent isn’t receiving commission from the solicitor (they’re legally required to disclose if they are) - unlike with brokers and surveyors where you should avoid agent recommendations, it’s in the agents interest that you have a good solicitor as it maximizes the chance of the transaction running smoothly. But note agents are optimizing for speed rather than thoroughness.
While not a recommendation per se you should check any solicitors you’re considering are on your mortgage lenders solicitor panel. This means that the solicitors can act for both yourself and your lender, this is much more cost-effective and efficient than if the lender has to use a separate conveyancer. Most reputable conveyancers will be on the lending panel of most major lenders, but if you’re using a smaller lender this is definitely worth checking (the lender, your mortgage broker or the solicitor should be able to quickly confirm this).
Benchmarking pricing
Once you’ve narrowed your options to 2-4 potential conveyancers that meet your criteria it’s worth getting quotes from them all to get a sense of what’s a reasonable price.
Quotes will typically include their professional fees, disbursements and stamp duty costs. Stamp duty costs are set by the government and you should expect this number to be the same across all the quotes, if you see variance then it likely means at least one of the solicitors has miscalculated, so you should be careful to double check this number. If the conveyancer makes mistakes in the quote it doesn’t bode well for them handling your property purchase.
Disbursements are where the lawyer is paying something on your behalf (like searches) and passing those fees onto you. Broadly these should be similar across firms, but there are some fees such as AML or bank transfer fees which not all solicitors charge for separately. Also check if the fees are the total expected for the transaction or if you need to pay some fees multiple times (for example ID checks might be a per-person fee) - what might seem a cheaper quote initially might be more expensive once you’ve adjusted for how the disbursements are structured.
Legal fees are where the real pricing differences lie, they reflect the solicitor’s time and judgement, not fixed costs. A senior partner at a solicitors firm leading your case will cost more than a junior paralegal at a high-volume conveyancing firm. Note that some conveyancers will quote including VAT while other will not, so make sure you’re comparing like-with-like.
Once you’ve had your offer accepted you can appoint your solicitor and you’re ready to go.