To cover the time that a conveyancer spends working on your transaction, you will need to pay them a basic fee, which will be based on one of the following pricing systems:
1) A pre-determined fixed-fee.
2) A fee that is linked to the final sale price of the property.
3) An hour by hour fee.
If you have the option to pay a fixed pre-determined fee then you should definitely take it, especially if you are buying or selling an expensive property. Unfortunately though, fewer and fewer conveyancing firms are now offering that pricing system, as it is the least profitable for them.
The most common pricing system is the second one stated, and that is the one that most people end up using. You should avoid paying a conveyancer on an hourly basis because you will not know beforehand how much to budget for their services.
Inevitably you will pay more overall if you opt for that pricing system. In addition to the basic conveyancing fee, you will also have to factor in disbursements, which are the unavoidable costs incurred by a conveyancer whilst working on your transaction.
Amongst other things, this includes licenses and taxes. Disbursements should, in theory, cost the same whichever conveyancing firm you decide to use, as the prices are not set by them, but by the people they buy from. However, some conveyancing firms will add a mark-up onto disbursements to boost their own profits.
Some conveyancing firms take advantage of the gray area between the basic fee and disbursements. They will advertise a very low basic fee, but will only include a few services for that fee, with the rest of them being wrongly categorized as disbursements, and you being charged a hefty price for them.
Therefore, you will need to not just consider the cost of conveyancing quotes, but also what exactly is included within them. You will be able to find a list of what is generally included as standard within a basic conveyancing fee by doing a little online research.