The Solicitors Regulatory Authority, the body which regulates law firms, require us to provide you with information on our costs in relation to certain legal services which we provide. This is so that you have the information you need to make an informed choice of legal service provider, and an understanding as to what the total cost of that service may be.
One such legal service is the sale, purchase and mortgage of residential property.
The fees which we charge for residential conveyancing depend on a wide variety of factors including but not limited to whether the transaction is a sale or purchase, where the property is, and whether it is a flat or a house.
We have provided information on the potential costs for sales, purchases and re-mortgages and listed the factors which may cause those costs to increase. However, fees will vary from property to property and can on occasion be significantly more than the ranges given. We can give you an accurate figure once we have specific information about the property including having sight of the relevant documentation.
This page details our pricing structure for property purchases.
The legal fees you will pay for a property purchase is based on the price of the property, the location of the property and any specific circumstances. The basic legal fee, as shown in Table 1 below, is determined by a sliding scale based on property value. The more expensive the property, the higher that basic fee will be. This is due to the amount of risk attached to higher value purchases.
Our fees cover all the work required to complete the purchase of your new property, including dealing with registration at HM Land registry and dealing with the payment of the Stamp Duty Land Tax (or Land Transaction Tax if the property is in Wales).
Table 1 below shows the range of fees we can charge for a property of a particular price. For a specific quote, please contact your local office. The specific circumstances are shown in table 2 and disbursements in table 3
| Property Price | Fee Range excl VAT | Fee Range incl VAT charged at 20% |
| £0-100,000 | £950-1200 | £1140-1440 |
| £100,001-200,000 | £1000-1250 | £1200-1500 |
| £200,001-300,000 | £1050-1300 | £1260-1560 |
| £300,001-400,000 | £1100-1350 | £1320-1620 |
| £400,001-500,000 | £1150-1400 | £1380-1680 |
| £500,001-600,000 | £1200-1450 | £1440-1740 |
| £600,001-700,000 | £1250-2400 | £1500-2880 |
| £700,001-800,000 | £1300-2450 | £1560-2940 |
| £800,001-900,000 | £1350-2500 | £1620-3000 |
| £900,001-1,000,000 | £1400-2550 | £1680-3060 |
For properties valued at over £1,000,000 fees will be charged at the hourly rate of the lawyer undertaking the work on your behalf. Please contact your local office for a bespoke quotation.
The current hourly rate bands are set out below. These rates do not include VAT which will be charged at 20%.
| Senior Partners and Consultants | £220-£350 |
| Junior Partners | £190-£300 |
| Solicitors/Senior Executives | £150-£275 |
| Legal Executives and Senior Clerks | £140-£200 |
| Trainee Solicitors and Clerks | £100-£175 |
We will charge additional fees (on top of the fees referred to above) for each of the following specific circumstances:
| Circumstance | Fee excl VAT | Fee incl VAT charged at 20% |
| A Leasehold Flat * | £500 – £1500 | £600 – £1800 |
| A Shared Ownership purchase (where you purchase a share in a property and the landlord owns the other share) * | £250 | £300 |
| Purchasing a new build property | £125 | £150 |
| Purchasing using a Help To Buy ISA | £50 | £60 |
| Purchasing using a Help To Buy Equity Loan | £250 | £300 |
| Purchasing using a Help to Buy Forces Scheme Loan | £75 | £15 |
| The Preparation of a Declaration of Trust | £150 | £180 |
| Purchasing a property which has been repossessed | £125 | £150 |
| Purchasing where a property has Solar Panels | £200 | £240 |
| Electronic ID check (where required) (approx) | £6.00 | £7.20 |
| Electronic Money Transfer Fee | £30.00 | £36.00 |
| Digital Stamp Duty Land Tax Fee | £5.00 | £6.00 |
| Digital Land Registration Fee | £5.00 | £6.00 |
| Sign It (powered by Docusign – per parcel) | £2.00 | £2.40 |
| Confirmly (Check Against Law Firms– Per Check) | £12.50 | £15.00 |
There will also be disbursements payable. These are costs relating to your matter that are payable to 3rd parties. We handle the payment of these fees to the 3rd party to both ensure a smoother process and because it is often a requirement of mortgage conditions that we do so. We have provided links to a Stamp Duty Land Tax Calculator and HM Land Registry’s fee scale so that you have accurate information about the amount of these particular disbursements since they are both dependant upon the price of the property being purchased.
| Disbursement | Cost excluding VAT | Cost including VAT charged at 20% |
| Local Authority Search | ** | |
| Drainage Search | *** | |
| Environmental Search (based on a Groundsure Homebuyers Report)
Environmental Search (based on a Groundsure Avista Report – includes a Cheshire Salt Search and a Coal Mining Search where these are needed) |
From £80.00
From £120.00 |
From £96.00
From £144.00 |
| Cheshire Salt Search if required https://www.groundsure.com/cheshire-salt-search | From £33 | From £39.60 |
| Coal Mining Search if required https://www2.groundstability.com/mining-reports-prices-2018/ | From £40.00 | From £48.00 |
| Index Map Search (obtained through our system search provider and includes their administration fee of £0.34p (plus VAT)) | £4.34 | £5.20 |
| Land Registry Search per title (obtained through our system search provider and includes their administration fee of £0.50p (plus VAT)) | £3.50 | £4.20 |
| Bankruptcy Search per person (obtained through our system search provider and includes their administration fee of £0.67p (plus VAT)) | £2.67 | £3.20 |
| Land Registry Registration Fee | https://www.gov.uk/guidance/hm-land-registry-registration-services-fees#scale-1-fees | |
| Stamp Duty Land Tax for Properties in England | https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/calculate-stamp-duty-land-tax/#/intro | |
| Stamp Duty Land Tax for Properties in Wales | https://beta.gov.wales/land-transaction-tax-calculator | |
| Registration of a charge at Companies House (needed where a company is buying with a mortgage)
MR01, MR02, MR04 & MR05 Filings (Per Submission) dealt with through our system search provider and includes their administration fee of £5.50 (plus VAT)) |
£17.50 | £21 |
| Questionnaire (inc covering documents for signing) – per person | £6.50 | £7.80 |
| Enhanced VOF (Verification of Funds) – (per party) | £4.00 | £4.80 |
Referral Fees: If you are referred to Butcher & Barlow by an introducer where we pay them a referral fee, we will provide you with details of the arrangement and the fee we pay in our client care letter that we will send to you at the beginning of the transaction. This fee is paid by us so that there is no additional charge for you to pay.
Portal Fees: Some mortgage lenders send their mortgage offer to us via an on-line portal and there is a charge to access it. Such charge is usually either £15 plus VAT at 20% (£18) or £26 plus VAT at 20% (£31.20) depending on the portal provider that the lender uses. We will provide you with details of the fee payable, if any, in our client care letter that we will send to you at the beginning of the transaction.
* There will be additional disbursements payable where a property is leasehold. These will be set out in the specific lease relating to the property. These disbursements are usually payable to the Freeholder or Management Company (or both). We will advise you on the actual disbursements once we have had sight of the lease and any Management Company and/or Freeholder’s information pack.
Ground rent and service charge are also likely to be payable throughout your ownership of a leasehold property. Again, we will confirm the amounts upon sight of the lease.
** Local Authority Searches: The price of a local authority search is set by the relevant local authority. Fees can range from £75 – £200 plus VAT at 20% and we can give you a specific cost once we know which local authority the property falls within.
*** Drainage Search: The price of a drainage search is set by the relevant service provider. Fees range from £40 – £100 plus VAT at 20% and we can give you a specific cost once we know which provider services the property.
If you are not purchasing with the benefit of a mortgage, or have a mortgage lender which so allows, we can order a personal search bundle. This includes the Local Authority Search, Environmental Search and relevant mining searches. These bundles are often cheaper overall than the individual searches. We will advise you on whether this is an option once we know more about your purchase.
Our fees assume that:
How long it will take from your offer being accepted until you can move in to your new home will depend on a number of factors. The average process will take between 8 and 16 weeks but it can be quicker or slower depending on the parties in the chain, the type of property being purchased (some properties such as flats for example require information to be obtained from third parties) and any complications which may arise in any of the transactions throughout the chain. Our Residential Property Team will talk you through the procedure and likely timescales in more detail once the specifics of the purchase and the chain are known.
You can view the stages of a usual property purchase here.