What does the law say about who can do conveyancing?
Conveyancing is a reserved legal activity under the Legal Services Act 2007. Preparing a transfer, a contract for sale or a charge of land for someone else, for reward, can only be done by a person authorised by an approved regulator. For residential property that means licensed conveyancers regulated by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, and lawyers regulated by the other approved regulators, including those in Scotland and Northern Ireland acting on their own jurisdictions' rules.
The reservation is about doing it for someone else. Nothing stops you preparing the documents for your own purchase, and HM Land Registry accepts applications from unrepresented buyers, subject to stricter identity checks. So the honest answer to the legal question is that you do not need anyone. The practical answer is different, and it turns on the lender, the risk and the amount of work.
Property Law Online is preparing to open as a conveyancing practice regulated by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, and is not yet authorised to carry out reserved legal work. The CLC was created by the Administration of Justice Act 1985 specifically to regulate conveyancing specialists, and its licence holders carry professional indemnity insurance and contribute to a compensation fund in the same way as other regulated lawyers.
Why does the lender insist on a conveyancer?
A mortgage lender is taking security over the property, and it needs a regulated, insured professional to certify that the title is good and marketable, that the searches reveal nothing that affects its security, and that its charge will be validly registered as a first charge. The certificate of title the conveyancer gives on requesting the mortgage advance is what the lender relies on, and if it is wrong the lender claims against the conveyancer's insurance. No mainstream lender accepts a certificate from the borrower.
Lenders also require the conveyancer to be on their panel. Panel membership depends on regulatory status, insurance and, for many lenders, membership of the Conveyancing Quality Scheme or equivalent CLC accreditation. The lender's instructions are set out in the UK Finance Mortgage Lenders' Handbook, which runs to many pages of requirements about title, searches, insurance and reporting, and the conveyancer acts for the lender as well as the buyer in complying with them. That dual role is one reason a purchase cannot be split into a do-it-yourself buyer and a lender-only representative; most lenders will not instruct a separate firm on a residential purchase at all.
So the moment a mortgage is involved, the question is settled. The remaining question for cash buyers is whether they want to carry the risk themselves.
What does the conveyancing work actually consist of?
Reading the title register and title plan for restrictive covenants, rights of way, restrictions, charges and defects, and comparing the plan with what is being sold. Reading the lease, if there is one, for its term, ground rent, service charge provisions and restrictions. Ordering the searches that the property's location requires, reading the results and understanding what they mean; our what searches are needed guide explains them.
Raising enquiries with the seller's conveyancer about everything the documents leave unclear, and pursuing the answers with supporting evidence: building regulations completion certificates, planning permissions, guarantees, the freeholder's consents. Checking the contract, negotiating its terms, and advising on the deposit, the completion date and the risk that passes at exchange. Satisfying the lender's conditions and reporting to the lender on anything the handbook requires.
Then the money: verifying the source of the buyer's funds, receiving the deposit and the mortgage advance, carrying out the pre-completion searches on form OS1 and the bankruptcy search on form K16, and sending the purchase money to the seller's conveyancer on completion in exchange for the signed transfer and the keys. Afterwards, filing the Stamp Duty Land Tax return with HMRC within fourteen days of the effective date, or the Land Transaction Tax return with the Welsh Revenue Authority within thirty days (Finance Act 2003 section 76 and section 44 of the Land Transaction Tax and Anti-avoidance of Devolved Taxes (Wales) Act 2017, checked 19 September 2026), and applying to HM Land Registry on form AP1 to register the buyer and the lender's charge.
Each of those steps has a way of going wrong that a buyer doing it for the first time would not recognise until years later, usually when they come to sell and the buyer's conveyancer finds it.
| Doing it yourself | Licensed conveyancer | |
|---|---|---|
| Allowed with a mortgage | No; lenders require a panel conveyancer | Yes, acting for buyer and lender |
| Allowed as a cash buyer | Yes | Yes |
| Professional indemnity insurance | None; you bear every loss | Yes, plus the CLC compensation fund |
| Access to searches | Can order most, but must interpret them | Ordered, read and reported on |
| Handling the purchase money | Sent from your own account; no client account protection | Through a regulated client account |
| HM Land Registry identity | Form ID1 verified in person or by a conveyancer | Conveyancer confirms identity on the AP1 |
| Seller's side cooperation | Some sellers' conveyancers decline to deal with unrepresented buyers | Routine |
| Tax return | Your responsibility, with penalties for lateness | Filed on your behalf |
| Cost | Third-party fees only | Fixed fee agreed in writing plus third-party fees |
What goes wrong when buyers do their own conveyancing?
The common failures are not exotic. A restrictive covenant against extensions is missed and discovered when the planning application is refused by the covenant holder rather than the council. A right of way over the garden is not spotted on the plan. A lease with fewer than eighty years to run is bought at a full price and the cost of extension only emerges on resale; our lease length 80 years guide explains why. An indemnity policy is not obtained for a missing building regulations certificate, and the next buyer's lender insists on one.
Money is the other area. Purchase funds sent to a fraudulent bank account after an intercepted email is the largest single category of conveyancing loss, and a regulated conveyancer's verification procedures and insurance are the protection. A buyer sending their own money has neither. The Stamp Duty Land Tax return, which is the buyer's responsibility, attracts penalties and interest if late, and the transaction cannot be registered until the return is filed and the certificate issued.
Registration itself is the last trap. HM Land Registry requires an unrepresented applicant to prove identity with form ID1, verified by a conveyancer or at an HM Land Registry office, or ID5 for a company. Applications from unrepresented buyers are more often returned with requisitions, and each requisition adds weeks. Meanwhile the priority period of the OS1 search runs out and a later application could gain priority.
None of this means a buyer cannot do it. It means the saving is the conveyancer's fee and the exposure is the price of the house.
Does my conveyancer need to be local?
No. Titles are digital and ordered from HM Land Registry online. Searches are ordered electronically from the council or a search provider. Identity is verified through electronic checks and video or app-based verification, and documents are signed electronically or by post. Completion money moves by bank transfer. A conveyancer in one town can act on a purchase in another with no loss of anything except the ability to walk into the office, and most buyers never did that anyway.
What matters is responsiveness: whether you can reach the person actually handling your file, whether they tell you what is outstanding, and whether they answer the other side's enquiries the day they arrive. A named handler and a live case timeline do more for the speed of a purchase than a local address. Local knowledge has some value for unusual properties, such as a former mining area or a flood plain, but a conveyancer who orders the right searches for the postcode has that knowledge in the search results.
When should I instruct a conveyancer?
The day your offer is accepted, and ideally before. Having a conveyancer named and identity checks already done makes your offer more credible to the estate agent, and it means the seller's contract pack can be sent immediately rather than waiting a week while you compare quotes. Our how long does conveyancing take guide sets out where the weeks go and why the first one matters most.
Before you instruct, ask three things: is the fee fixed and in writing, who will actually handle the file, and how will you see what is happening. Our buying service answers all three: a fixed fee agreed before we start, one named handler, and regular written updates.