We're hiring! if you'd like to join one of our award winning teams, read more on our Careers page.
Costs
Residential Conveyancing is a specialism of Martin Tolhurst and we act on around 7000 property completions a year. According to the Land Registry, we are one of the largest firms of solicitors in the country, undertaking conveyancing. We have more than 30 specialist fee earners dealing with residential property work who would be happy to act on your behalf. For individual fee earner’s biographies, please see the individual links below.
We act on behalf of clients selling and buying and are also on the panel of all major mortgage lenders to ensure that we can act on behalf of your mortgage lender in your sale/purchase transaction. This should save you both time and cost.
As evidence of the quality of service that you will receive, we have won multiple awards for our conveyancing services. In 2024, we were judged to be the best firm in the South of England for conveyancing. In 2021 we won the Conveyancing Training award nationally at the Modern Law conveyancing Awards, and in 2022 we won the Law Net Training and Development awards.
In 2023 over 300 clients completed surveys/reviews for the service that they had received from us on residential conveyancing transactions and 94% of our clients in those surveys confirmed that they would use us again or recommend us to their family/friends. Our review website scores (all as at 30th April 2025 and subject to change) are also very high for the conveyancing industry:
Review Solicitors 4.7*/5
Facebook 4.7*/5
Yell.com 4.6*/5
Google Reviews 4.6*/5
Trustpilot 4.7*/5
Your transaction will be dealt with by a named contact at the firm, and this will be one of the conveyancing specialists employed by Martin Tolhurst. We have over 30 specialist conveyancers in Residential Conveyancing; they will deal with your transaction from the time the file is opened, until completion takes place.
Every transaction will differ according to the extent of the chain, whether parties within the chain require a mortgage or a survey, and how quickly mortgage, survey and searches can be obtained. On a freehold transaction, we would anticipate exchange of contracts on average, to be 10–12 weeks from receipt or issuing of contracts until exchange of contracts. Your individual transaction may be more or less than this average. Completion is usually 5–14 days after exchange. On leasehold transactions, because of the involvement of management companies and landlords, an additional 2 weeks is required, giving an average of 12–14 weeks from receipt of contracts to exchange of contracts.
To see the key stages in a residential sale or purchase transaction, please click here.
We charge all clients fees based on a scale according to property price. In addition to price, there are other factors that determine the fees that will be charged including whether a mortgage is being obtained, if the property is freehold or leasehold, the number of buyers and other variables. We are able to give you a fixed estimate at the outset of the transaction once we have details of your proposed transaction. It is easily obtained by inputting the sale/purchase price, and a number of sellers/buyers on our conveyancing calculator tool which can be accessed here.
Included in the fixed fee transaction prices are the following: -
On a sale – the fee given includes all attendances and correspondence with you from the opening of the file until the file is closed shortly after completion, dealing with estate agents (if any), issuing of contracts, dealing with enquiries raised by the buyers and their solicitors, dealing with any mortgage company and redeeming the mortgage upon completion, dealing with the transfer documents, replies to requisitions and effecting exchange/completion and all associated documentation.
On a purchase transaction, the quotation provided includes all correspondence with you and all telephone calls and attendances with you during the transaction, dealing with the sellers’ solicitors, raising enquiries, considering replies to enquiries, raising searches, checking search replies, providing you with copies of the searches and replies to enquiries and any comments on the same, reporting to you and dealing with any mortgage offer/instructions, reporting to you on the same, arranging your signature with advice on the contract, transfer and mortgage effecting exchange, dealing with post-exchange work, including pre-completion searches, dealing with completion, and dealing with land registration matters and advising you of registration.
We will give you a full written costs estimate for your conveyancing matter at the outside and confirm the work we will carry out for you for those costs. This is known as the “scope” of the matter. Attached are sheets confirming the scope of the work we anticipate on conveyancing sale and purchase transactions. Our estimate is based on the information we have at the outset of your transaction and given in good faith. However on a minority of occasions the work will become more complex and additional work is required. Examples of this may include having to deal with a lease extension, a claim for possessory title of land or deal with a freehold management company. Where such additional work arises, that is outside of the additional scope for which we provided our estimate, then additional charges will apply. Attached are the menus of additional fixed charges that will apply if such additional work, outside of scope, is required on your sale or purchase. We will inform you on your matter as soon as we become aware of such additional charges.
Additional Costs Schedule Purchase
Additional Costs Schedule Sale
Scope of Work & Additional Costs Schedule - Purchase
Scope of Work & Additional Costs Schedule - Sale
As solicitors, we are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, and observe the SRA Code of Conduct 2019. We have accreditations from the Law Society- we were awarded their Conveyancing Quality Standard in 2012 and have had annual reassessments since that date. We were awarded the quality management standard, Lexcel, in 2010 and have been reassessed annually since that date to retain the mark that only 1000 firms in the England Wales have been awarded. We are insured with an industry-leading insurer, HDI Global SE and co-insurers, who comprehensively insure us for claims up to £10M. We operate an established complaints procedure.
All of the above information is designed to give you a fair and reasonable assessment of the likely costs and individual quotation will be given to you at the outset of your transaction and this may be adjusted according to the circumstances of your proposed sale or purchase. All of the above information is given by way of guidance and is not binding in terms of the individual transactional or quotation. If you have any queries about the price or service that may be provided on your transaction, please do not hesitate to contact the following conveyancing partners:
Abdul Mutallib (Head of Department) - amutallib@martintolhurst.co.uk - 01233 505571
Richard Carter (COLP) - rcarter@martintolhurst.co.uk - 01233 505558
Nameeta Gujral (Complaints Partner) - ngujral@martintolhurst.co.uk - 01795 416958
Tom Bexhell (Conveyancing Partner) - tbexhell@martintolhurst.co.uk - 01233 505568
Danny Ball (Conveyancing Partner) - dball@martintolhurst.co.uk - 01795 416932
For a copy of our Terms of Business or privacy policy please do not hesitate to contact us. If you require an individual price estimate for your residential conveyancing transaction, please contact us further so that we may provide this to you on an individual basis.
All of the above prices are subject to the rate of VAT that is charged, which is currently 20%. All of the above prices and VAT are subject to change at short notice.
Search site
Contact Us
Make an enquiry
