Solicitor vs conveyancer

What each one is

Conveyancing is a reserved activity, which means only certain regulated people can do it for you. Two of them compete for house moves.

A licensed conveyancer is licensed by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, which calls itself the specialist property law regulator and licenses both conveyancing and probate. Their training is property law rather than law in general, and most work in firms that do nothing else.

A solicitor is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and qualified across the whole of law. In a conveyancing department the day-to-day work is usually done by a licensed conveyancer, a legal executive or a paralegal supervised by a solicitor, which is worth knowing before you pay for the letters after someone’s name.

The mechanics of your purchase are identical either way. Searches, enquiries, the contract, the mortgage report, exchange, completion, stamp duty and registration all happen in the same order.

Which to choose, by situation

The scope question only matters when the transaction stops being routine.

Situation	Better handled by
Standard freehold purchase with a mortgage	Either
Leasehold flat, straightforward	Either, with leasehold experience
Buying with an unmarried partner and unequal deposits	Solicitor, because a declaration of trust comes with it
Selling as executor of an estate	Solicitor, or a conveyancer whose licence covers probate
Transfer as part of a divorce	Solicitor, alongside the financial order
Boundary, access or right of way dispute	Solicitor
Buying through a company, or with a trust involved	Solicitor
Lease extension or enfranchisement	Solicitor, usually a specialist one
New build with a complex plot plan	Either, with new build experience

The pattern is simple. If the property matter is the whole matter, either professional will do it. If the property matter is one part of a bigger legal problem, a solicitor can do all of it, and the alternative is paying two firms to talk to each other.

What to check before you instruct either

The regulator is the least useful question you can ask. These four are the ones that decide how your move goes.

Panel membership. Your lender keeps a panel of firms it will accept. A firm off the panel means the lender instructs its own solicitor and adds their cost to your bill. Check before instructing, not after.

The Conveyancing Quality Scheme. The Law Society’s accreditation for residential property teams, audited against a published standard. Most lenders now expect it, and it is the clearest quality mark a non-lawyer can read. It appears on the conveyancing pick in most of the city lists on this site, including Sydney Mitchell in Birmingham and Barcan+Kirby in Bristol.

The published price. Firms regulated by the SRA must publish prices for residential conveyancing, including sales, purchases, mortgages and re-mortgages, and that price must show the basis of the charges, the experience of whoever does the work, likely disbursements, whether VAT applies and the key stages with timescales. Use it to compare like with like.

Who actually does the work. Ask for a name, a grade and a caseload. A conveyancer carrying 90 files is slower than one carrying 45, whatever their title.

Problems only a solicitor can handle

The choice looks academic until the transaction hits one of these, which is when scope stops being theoretical.

A search reveals a problem. A local search shows an unadopted road, a planning breach or a covenant that the seller has ignored for years. Either professional can raise an enquiry. The question is what happens if the seller refuses to fix it, and whether the firm can advise you on a claim rather than only on walking away.

The chain collapses. Someone pulls out after you have paid for searches. There is no legal work left, only an argument about costs and whether anything is recoverable. Solicitors handle those; conveyancers usually stop at the abortive fee.

Indemnity insurance is offered instead of a fix. A common shortcut where a document is missing. Both can arrange a policy. Understanding what the policy does not cover, and whether accepting it weakens your position later, is legal advice on risk rather than conveyancing.

The seller is an executor, an attorney or a company. The paperwork changes, and so does who has authority to sign. A conveyancer with a probate licence handles the first; the other two are more comfortable with a solicitor.

The lease is defective. Short lease, missing management company, unclear service charge apportionment. This is the point where a lease extension or a deed of variation enters the transaction, and that is solicitor work in almost every firm.

What each one costs

Both usually quote a fixed legal fee plus disbursements, and the difference between them is now small enough that it should not decide the choice.

The comparison that matters is the whole quote. Search fees, Land Registry fees, bank transfer fees, leasehold management pack fees and the stamp duty return are the same regardless of who does the work, so a cheaper legal fee attached to vaguer disbursements is not a cheaper move.

Conveyancing in Scotland and Northern Ireland

Neither has licensed conveyancers, so the comparison does not arise.

Scotland runs the whole transaction differently. The seller provides a Home Report before marketing, offers are made through solicitors, and the deal becomes binding when the solicitors conclude missives, which is usually weeks before you move. Many Scottish firms are solicitor estate agents, marketing the property and doing the legal work, which is why the conveyancing picks on the Edinburgh and Glasgow lists are estate agents as well as law firms.

Northern Ireland uses solicitors working under the Law Society of Northern Ireland’s Home Charter Scheme, which sets what your solicitor must explain and when. Membership of it is the mark to look for on a Belfast property firm.