Mortgage Information > Extra Costs > Solicitor Fees

The solicitor or conveyancer charges a fee to cover basic services, which include taking your instructions and advising you throughout the course of the sale, checking the contract and completing the sale on your behalf. You will probably have to pay around £400 for this (based on a property valued at £100,000) but disbursements such as local authority searches, Land Registry fees and so on, will cost extra, anything up to £400.

Searches
Your local authority will carry out a number of searches to ensure that there are no reasons why the sale of the property cannot go ahead. It will also identify anything that may affect your decision to purchase, such as the planned construction of a new road or a housing development. The cost of these searches is about £150.

Land Registry
When the sale goes through, you'll have to pay a fee to register your ownership of the property to the Land Registry office. This is the government department responsible for maintaining the register for all properties in England and Wales. Registration will cost around £125, although the amount varies according the the value of your home - and it may be higher if your home hasn't previously been registered, for instance, if it's a newbuild. Your solicitor may include this fee in the final bill.