Who can legally do your conveyancing?
Transferring the legal ownership of property is a reserved legal activity in England and Wales. Under the Legal Services Act 2007 only an authorised person can prepare the transfer, the conveyance or the contract for the land, which in practice means a solicitor, a licensed conveyancer, or a chartered legal executive.
That is the short version. The longer version matters because the two main regulators behave differently, and because a lot of the people you actually speak to during a purchase will not be any of the above.
Solicitor or licensed conveyancer
A licensed conveyancer is a property law specialist regulated by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers. Property is all they do.
A solicitor is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and may practise in other areas of law as well. A firm doing conveyancing will usually have people who do nothing else, but the qualification itself is broader.
For an ordinary freehold or leasehold purchase, either is fine. Both are authorised to do the work, both carry compulsory professional indemnity insurance, and both are covered by the same complaints route. Where it can tip one way is complexity: an unregistered title, a contested boundary or a probate sale sitting alongside the purchase may be better with a firm that has a wider practice to draw on.
Every firm on our panel is regulated by one or the other. If you are comparing elsewhere, the regulator’s own register is the place to check, not the firm’s website.
The person handling your file may not be qualified, and that is allowed
This surprises people, so it is worth being straight about. The Legal Services Act allows non-authorised staff to carry out conveyancing inside a regulated practice, provided they are supervised by someone who is qualified and regulated.
So your day-to-day contact may be a paralegal or a conveyancing assistant rather than a solicitor. That is lawful and normal, and in a well-run firm it is also efficient, because routine correspondence does not need a qualified lawyer’s time. What matters is that the firm is regulated and that someone authorised is accountable for the file.
If you want to know who is actually supervising your matter, ask at the outset. A firm that is reluctant to tell you is telling you something.
Do they need to be local?
No, and most people’s conveyancer is not. The work is done by post, email and phone, and the searches are ordered against the property rather than carried out by someone walking around it.
A firm two hundred miles away is no worse placed than one on your high street. Local knowledge occasionally helps with a quirk of a particular area, for example mining or flooding history, but the search providers cover that ground regardless.
What does make a difference is responsiveness. The single biggest complaint about conveyancing is not being able to get hold of anyone, and that is not a function of distance. Judge on reviews, on how the firm answers before you have paid them anything, and on whether the quote is itemised rather than a headline figure.
What the price should tell you
A quote that is only a legal fee is not a quote. The total you will pay is the legal fee, VAT on that fee, and disbursements, which is money the firm pays out on your behalf for searches, Land Registry fees and bank transfers.
Firms that advertise a low fee and leave the disbursements off are not cheaper, they are just quoting less of the bill. Compare totals. How much conveyancing costs breaks down what sits inside each part, and what conveyancing actually involves covers what you are paying for.
If something goes wrong
There are two different complaints, and they go to different places.
A complaint about the service, such as delay, poor communication or a bill you were not warned about, goes first to the firm, and then to the Legal Ombudsman if the firm’s own complaints process does not resolve it. The Ombudsman can order the firm to pay you compensation. It can only look at providers that are regulated, which is one practical reason to use one.
A complaint about conduct, such as dishonesty or a serious breach of professional rules, goes to the regulator, the SRA or the CLC. If you send a conduct complaint to the Ombudsman it will pass it on.
Give the firm its own complaints procedure first. The Ombudsman will usually expect you to have done that before it takes the case.
Frequently asked questions
Can I do my own conveyancing?
If you are buying with a mortgage, no in practice: lenders require a regulated firm to act, because they are protecting their own security in the property. A cash buyer has more freedom, but registering a transfer correctly is unforgiving, and the money involved makes it an expensive place to learn.
Is an online conveyancer regulated the same way?
Yes. “Online” describes how a firm communicates, not what it is. The firm is still either SRA or CLC regulated and carries the same obligations. Check the register rather than the branding.
Does my estate agent choosing the conveyancer cost me anything?
It can. Agents often receive a referral fee, which has to be disclosed to you. The recommendation may still be a good firm, but it is a recommendation with a commercial interest behind it, and you are free to compare it against others.
You can compare quotes from regulated firms with the legal fee, VAT and disbursements itemised, and see the review scores next to the price rather than taking the agent’s word for it.