Guide
Getting a conveyancing quote you can actually compare
Updated
The useful thing about the transparency rules is that most of this is already published. You are not asking a firm to disclose something; you are asking it to confirm what it has already had to write down.
Ask for the total, not the fee
Rule 1.5 requires the total cost of the service or, where that is not practicable, the average cost or range of costs. A quote giving only a headline legal fee is less than the firm has already published.
Ask for it including VAT and with the disbursements itemised, and ask for it in writing. Both are things the firm has already prepared for its own website.
Eight questions
Is the fee fixed or an estimate, and what makes it change? Which disbursements are included and which are billed later? Is VAT included in every figure shown? Who will actually do the work, and what are their qualifications and experience? Is the firm on my lender's panel? Does the fee cover the leasehold work if this is leasehold? Will the Land Registry application be made through the portal or by post? What is the fee if the transaction falls through, and at what point does it apply?
Five of those eight are answered by the firm's published transparency information before you make contact, which is a useful way of finding out whether the quote you received matches what the firm has already committed to publicly.
Two traps in cheap quotes
The abortive fee. Transactions fall through, and a quote that says nothing about it is not cheaper, it is silent about a real risk.
The leasehold supplement. Leasehold work is genuinely more work, and a fixed fee quoted before anybody has checked the tenure will be revised once somebody does. Say the tenure when you ask, and the quote you receive will be one you can hold the firm to.
Where redress sits
Rule 2.1 requires SRA-regulated firms to publish details of their complaints handling procedure, including how and when a complaint can be made to the Legal Ombudsman and to the SRA.
Service complaints go to the Legal Ombudsman, which also covers CLC-regulated licensed conveyancers, so that route is the same whichever of those two regulators applies. Conduct complaints go to the firm's own regulator. In Scotland the route is the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission instead.