Guide
Conveyancing fees calculator: which parts are fixed and which are quoted
Updated
Enter the price and the legal fee in your quote: the calculator returns the firm's fee with VAT, the HM Land Registry fee and Stamp Duty Land Tax for a purchase in England, each apart, because most of the bill is not the solicitor's to set and the part that is can be compared line by line.
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How this calculator works
- Stamp Duty Land Tax at the residential rates for a purchase in England: 0% up to £125,000, 2% to £250,000, 5% to £925,000, 10% to £1.5 million and 12% above. First-time buyers pay nothing up to £300,000 and 5% from £300,001 to £500,000, with no relief above £500,000. (gov.uk, SDLT residential property rates (read 22 October 2026))
- An additional property pays 5% on top of each rate, where the price is £40,000 or more. The 2% surcharge for buyers who are not UK resident, and the rules for companies, leases and shared ownership, are not included. (gov.uk, SDLT when buying an additional residential property (read 22 October 2026))
- The Land Registry fee is the Scale 1 fee for an application lodged through the portal or Business Gateway, by value of the property. By post it is higher, as the table below shows. (gov.uk, HM Land Registry registration services fees)
- VAT at the standard rate of 20% on the legal fee. (gov.uk, VAT rates (read 22 October 2026))
- For England only. Wales charges Land Transaction Tax and Scotland Land and Buildings Transaction Tax, and Northern Ireland registers with Land and Property Services rather than HM Land Registry, so this total does not apply there.
A quote is three things, and only one of them is negotiable
The legal fee is the firm's own charge for doing the work. It is the only part that differs because you chose a different firm, and it is the part a comparison is actually about.
Disbursements are payments the firm makes on your behalf: searches, the Land Registry fee, bankruptcy and priority searches. Some are fixed by a published scale and some vary by local authority.
Tax is stamp duty in England and Northern Ireland, or its devolved equivalents. It is identical whichever firm you instruct, and it is usually the largest number on the page.
The Land Registry fee is published, so no calculator should be guessing it
HM Land Registry publishes a Scale 1 fee banded by the value of the property, and charges substantially less when the application is lodged electronically through the portal or Business Gateway rather than by post. Any firm doing volume residential conveyancing lodges electronically.
| Value of property | Fee by post | Fee via portal or Business Gateway |
|---|---|---|
| £0 to £80,000 | £45 | £20 |
| £80,001 to £100,000 | £95 | £40 |
| £100,001 to £200,000 | £230 | £100 |
| £200,001 to £500,000 | £330 | £150 |
| £500,001 to £1,000,000 | £655 | £295 |
| £1,000,001 and over | £1,105 | £500 |
On a £400,000 purchase that is a £180 difference on identical work, decided purely by how the firm submits the application. A quote that shows the postal figure is worth a question (gov.uk).
The tax is not the solicitor's number
Stamp Duty Land Tax is set by rates and bands, not by the firm, and HMRC publishes its own calculator (tax.service.gov.uk). Whether you are a first-time buyer, buying an additional property, or not resident in the UK changes it, and none of those change which conveyancer you should instruct.
The practical consequence is that a calculator returning one big total flatters whichever firm bundles the tax into the headline. Strip the tax out of both quotes before comparing anything.
Conveyancing fees in Scotland
This calculator is for a purchase in England. A Scottish purchase pays Land and Buildings Transaction Tax, registers with Registers of Scotland, and is handled by a solicitor through missives. Three Scottish firms we read on 22 October 2026 publish a purchase fee of £650, £850 and £1,000, each plus VAT, before those outlays; their figures and the LBTT bands are on our conveyancing fees in Scotland page.
Source: Innes Johnston, our costs: conveyancing (read 22 October 2026)
What to hold two quotes against
Regulated firms already publish this. Rule 1.5 of the SRA Transparency Rules requires the total cost of the service or, where that is not practicable, the average cost or range, along with the basis of the charges, a description of the disbursements and their costs, whether VAT applies, and what is included. Rule 1.3(a) applies it to residential conveyancing specifically.
- Is the legal fee inclusive of VAT? A fee quoted excluding VAT is 20% larger than it looks and is the single commonest reason two quotes are not comparable.
- Is the Land Registry fee at the portal rate or the postal rate? The scale above tells you which you have been given.
- Which searches are included? Local authority search costs vary by council, so a quote assuming a cheap authority is not wrong, just not yours.
- What triggers an additional charge? Leasehold, shared ownership, help-to-buy, unregistered title, a gifted deposit and a new-build all commonly carry supplements.
- Is there a fee if the transaction falls through? Abortive-transaction terms differ far more between firms than the headline fee does.
Why the calculator asks for the legal fee in your quote
Two of the three components can be stated exactly: the Land Registry fee from the published scale above, and the tax from HMRC's published rates. The third, the legal fee, is the firm's price and is not published as a national figure by anybody, so the calculator takes it from your quote rather than adding an invented average to two exact figures, which would produce a total that looks precise and is not. Its starting figure is the median of the purchase fees firms publish in our UK conveyancing fee index.
So compare the part that varies, against the two parts that do not. That is a shorter exercise than it sounds and it is the one that saves money.