Guide
Conveyancing fees and disbursements: inside an Australian bill
Updated
Comparing quotes goes wrong when one firm bundles searches and another does not. The regulator's own three way split is the cleanest way to line them up.
The disclosure you are entitled to
NSW Fair Trading states that "legal practitioners and conveyancers must disclose certain information to clients, generally before or when they are retained. This includes information about their costs for doing the conveyancing."
NSW Fair Trading advises: "Before the conveyancer or solicitor starts the work, ask for an itemised statement of the likely costs to give you a better idea of the total".
Queensland's guidance is the same in substance: "Before you appoint a solicitor, ask for a detailed quote for the work you want done."
One: the professional fee
Set by the firm. Fair Trading says only that "fees will vary between solicitors and conveyancers", and no Australian jurisdiction publishes a conveyancing scale, so we publish no range here either. What you can do is ask each firm for a fixed fee and for the list of circumstances that would take you outside it.
Two: disbursements
Costs the firm incurs on your behalf and passes through. Fair Trading's list is:
- A title search
- Certificate fees charged by authorities with responsibility for water, electricity, roads, schools and so on
- Photocopying
- Registering the mortgage
- Registering the transfer
The certificate fees are the variable part, because the search pack a firm orders depends on the state, the council and the property. A strata unit needs records inspection that a freehold house does not.
Three: other costs
Not the firm's charges at all, but part of your settlement budget. Fair Trading lists:
- building and pest inspections
- a survey report
- establishment of the mortgage
- home building insurance
- valuation fees
- mortgage insurance
- stamp duty and mortgage duty
- strata or community scheme levies
- council and water rates
- any outstanding land tax
Stamp duty sits in this third bucket and dominates it. See transfer duty by state for the current NSW, Victorian and Queensland schedules. Note that Queensland abolished mortgage duty on 1 July 2008. It kept a $5 duty on a transfer of a mortgage over Queensland land.
Five questions that make quotes comparable
- Is this a fixed fee, and what specifically takes me outside it?
- Which searches are included, and what is the estimate for the ones that are not?
- Does the figure include GST?
- Are registration fees for the transfer and the mortgage inside the quote or additional?
- What is your estimate for total disbursements on a property like this, in this council area?
Costs disclosure duties, and the conduct rules behind them, are set by each state. Ask the regulator in your state if a firm will not put its costs in writing before starting work.