Quality Sydney Conveyancing
Low-cost Conveyancing fees
Correct, these are our final fees at settlement:
$1,299 (GST and ALL mandatory searches incl) – fixed conveyancing fee for a standard Sydney (or NSW) house purchase conveyancing.
$1,400 (GST and ALL mandatory disclosure documents incl) – fixed conveyancing fee for a typical NSW or Sydney house sale conveyancing! 90% of Sydney houses, we should be able to do it at this price.
$1,299 or $1,419 for an apartment purchase. And $1,500 for an apartment sale (again for 90% of Sydney apartments, especially small-block ones, we should be able to do it at this price).
These are all-in, nothing-more-to-pay, fixed, final prices for standard conveyancing!
$99 (incl of GST) for contract review – this could take 2-3 hours. Our contract review includes making notes while reviewing so that we could call or email you about important points in the contract (i.e. points that may sway your decision whether to buy or not to buy), AND emailing the vendor solicitor to request amendments to contract terms, AND chasing (if vendor solicitor does not reply promptly) and forwarding the vendor solicitor’s reply to you, AND/OR sending the Notice of Rescission if you exchange but could not proceed with the purchase because your bank could not approve your loan. This token $99 fee is included in our fixed conveyancing fee when you proceed to purchase the property, i.e. this $99 will be deducted from the final fee at settlement.
In a nutshell, our fixed, low-cost Sydney Conveyancing fees for a standard conveyance include:
ALL conveyancing work – from preparation (or receipt) of contract to final settlement.
Disbursements – ALL certificates we need by legislation to order on your behalf so that settlement can proceed.
That is, our professional fees + GST + mandatory disbursements we need to pay on your behalf, is included in our low fixed price.
Absolutely NO HIDDEN FEES and CHARGES, what we quote here is all you pay us, that’s it!
You can rely on the fees we wrote here. But if you want confirmation, we can text or email you, so you have “paper” proof.
It is easy to start your Sydney conveyancing process with us:
- If you are buying in a private sale, and the vendor has accepted your offer, please email us the contact for sale.
- If you are buying in an auction, let us know and please email us the contract for sale before the auction.
- If you are selling, please email us the address of the property you are selling, whether this property is your home or your investment property, does it have a swimming pool, your real estate agent’s details, and if it is an investment property, please also email us the lease.
Sydney Conveyancing – in detail
Our fixed, low-cost fees are:
Standard purchase of a residential house
Sydney / NSW- Contract Review – if you are very interested in a particular property, the vendor has accepted your offer price and you are unsure about the contract, before you sign and pay 0.25% of the purchase price, please email us the contract and let us review it first.
- Our service to you include: from start to finish – review the contract, email you to highlight the contract, negotiate detrimental terms with the vendor solicitor (hopefully you give us time, like a few hours or a day, to do this before exchange; otherwise, we’ll do this step during the cooling off period), every step after exchange, and settle the matter.
- During the course of your conveyancing matter, ring or email us if you want to enquire about your conveyancing matter. We will answer you promptly.
- Our professional fees included.
- GST included.
- Disbursements at costs included (disbursements are costs of ordering mandatory certificates like 1) council rates certificate, 2) water rates certificate, and 3) outside agency stamping charges. These 3 disbursements are all that is required of all Sydney conveyancing lawyers acting for a house purchaser.)
- So the final price you pay us is $1,299 fixed.
- If you have paid us $99 for contract review, you will only need to pay us $1,200 at settlement.
- If it is inconvenient for you, you do NOT need to visit us. Everything can be done via phone calls, mails, emails or texts.
- Does not include Building Report (we can recommend a firm; this firm charges around $200 for a building report).
- Does not include Pest Report (we can recommend a firm; this firm charges around $250 for a pest report).
- As we provide an option of a lower-than-market conveyancing fee, our fee is for a standard conveyance of a property. If there are any deviations to the most straighforward, direct A-Z conveyancing, we’ll need to charge extra for all extra effort and time spent in the conveyancing process. It is not often that we need to do extra work; for the matters that we have been required to, it has usually been about $33 to $220 more. We’ll charge reasonably, definately not thousands more.
- Does not include bank fees and charges if you need to take out a loan/mortgage (charged directly by the banks).
- Does not include registration costs charged by Land Registry of NSW. NSW Land Registry charge for lodgement of documents with them. At settlement, a “Transfer” document is lodged for $171.70. (so that Land Registry record you as the new owner). If you also have a mortgage, a “Mortgage” document is also lodged, for another $171.70.
- Does not include PEXA fees ($137.39 charged directly by PEXA, the new electronic settlement platform which all lawyers are mandated to use. No solicitor can skip paying this fee to PEXA).
Standard sale of a residential house
Sydney / NSW- Typically $1,400 because no one can confirm how much are all the mandatory disclosure documents that make up a valid contract for sale till we order the “title search” document. So if you are interested to find out what our EXACT fee is, we’ll ask that you first pay us $35 to do a “title search”. We can then confirm whether we can do your sale conveyance for $1,400, or we need to charge more. Note that this “title search” document is one of the mandatory disclosure documents, so if you are not happy when we confirm our fee, you can take this “title search” document to your next solicitor preparing your contract for sale. S/he will need to include it in the contract.
- Our service to you include: from start to finish – preparation of contract to final settlement, and of course, every step in between. Before preparing your contract, you can let us know of any special conditions you want added to the contract. For example, if you want to lease back the property for a few weeks after settlement, let us know and we will include it in the contract.
- During the course of your conveyancing matter, ring or email us if you want to enquire about your conveyancing matter. We will answer you promptly.
- Our professional fees included.
- GST included.
- Disbursements at costs included (disbursements are costs of ordering mandatory disclosure documents to include in the contract for sale; for a typical house in Sydney, these disclosure documents normally cost around $450. Hence our low-cost price includes $450 of such disclosure documents. If the house you are selling have tonnes of easements and covenants and such disclosure documents turn out to be more than $450, we will let you know before we proceed. Please also read the first ticked point above.)
- The final price you pay us is $1,400 fixed.
- This price of $1,400 is split up into 2 payments; about $550 when we prepare the full contract for sale to email it off to your real estate agent (cc you) so that they can begin marketing your property, and about $850 at settlement.
- You do NOT need to visit us. Everything can be done via phone calls, mails, emails or texts.
- As we provide an option of a lower-than-market conveyancing fee, our fee is for a standard conveyance of a property. If there are any deviations to the most straighforward, direct A-Z conveyancing, we’ll need to charge extra for all extra effort and time spent in the conveyancing process. It is not often that we need to do extra work; for the matters that we have been required to, it has usually been about $33 to $220 more. We’ll charge reasonably, definately not thousands more.
- Does not include bank fees and charges if you have a mortgage and need to discharge your mortgage (charged directly by the banks).
- Does not include registration costs charged by Land Registry of NSW. NSW Land Registry charge for lodgement of documents with them. At settlement, if you still owe your bank money and need to discharge your mortgage, a “Discharge of Mortgage” document is lodged for $171.70.
- Does not include PEXA fees ($137.39 charged directly by PEXA, the new electronic settlement platform which all lawyers are mandated to use. No solicitor can skip paying this fee to PEXA).
If you are now wondering why should you choose us to do your Sydney conveyancing, you don’t know us, you haven’t heard about us, you just found us by searching the web, how can you trust that we will do a good job?
The truth is we don’t have a magical answer. We can only say that we know Sydney conveyancing well, and we believe our honest, low-cost fee is, if not the cheapest, definately amongst the cheapest in Sydney. We will say that despite our very affordable fee, we assure you that we will not sacrifice our professionalism. The final outcome is to ensure that your Sydney conveyancing is done meticulously (if you are purchasing, we will NOT miss advising you on detrimental points in the contract), smoothly, successfully, and in a manner that is fuss-free to you!
As you can also see, we give you a transparent, fixed, low-cost price upfront on this website. Hence, you do not need to waste time to call and enquire about a “from” price, or fill in an online form to get a quote about the final price.
We are Sydney solicitors, or commonly referred to as conveyancing lawyers, property solicitors, or property conveyancing specialislists when it comes to property law and conveyancing. Our years of Sydney conveyancing experience mean that in the unlikely event should something unexpected happen during the conveyancing process, we know how to give you the most correct advice and what is the best way to deal with your matter. Some of our testimonials can be found below.
Fees for Sydney conveyancing
Apartments / strata units, unregistered vacant land etc
- Strata Unit / Townhouse Purchase
- Strata Unit / Townhouse Sale
- Unregistered (vacant land / house / unit)
For a standard strata unit purchase – our price is either $1,299 or $1,419 fixed, i.e. $1,299 or $1,419 is all you pay us (price includes our professional fees, GST and 2 or 3 mandatory certificates we must order – council rates certificate, water rates certificate and strata rates certificate, AND outside agency stamping charges.)
Why 2 or 3 mandatory certificates? Because it all depends on how the vendor solicitor drafts the contract. The way it is drafted will decide whether you pay for the strata rates certificate directly to the vendor (in which case, our price is $1,299), or to us (in which case, our price is $1,419). Either way, you as a strata unit purchaser must pay for this strata rates certificate. This strata rates certificate is $120 across the board from all NSW strata companies.
Ah yes, if you are interested to do a Strata Report, we can recommend a firm. This firm charges around $250 for a strata report.
For a standard strata unit sale – our price is typically $1,500 fixed (price includes our professional fees, GST and all mandatory disclosure documents at costs. For a typical Sydney strata unit, mandatory disclosure documents cost about $550. If the unit you are selling have tonnes of easements and covenants and these turn out to be more than $550, we will let you know before we proceed).
Why does mandatory disclosure documents cost more for strata units than for houses? For a start, we need to order 2 title searches for strata units, 1 for the unit and 1 for the common property, instead of just 1 title search for houses. And normally there are more covenants and easements in the common property title search than a typical house title search. So you get the point, more mandatory disclosure documents we must order means it costs more.
For purchase of a plot of unregistered vacant land, or unregistered house or unit, our price is $1,600 + GST fixed.
Why does it cost more than a standard residential house purchase? This is solely because there are much more to read, therefore more in the contract to explain to you, and more to negotiate with the vendor solicitor. We usually take a lot more time to explain an off-the-plan vacant land contract. There are always things to explain, especially if you are a first home-buyer buying vacant land – e.g. there may be fills on the land, who pays for fences on the land, caveats that may be lodged by developers, compulsory commencement dates for building a house etc etc.
An unregistered property contract will always contain many more pages than a typical house contract, requiring much more review and explaining.
In these web pages, we explain Sydney property conveyancing in detail, including where we order the contract for sale and the mandatory documents, what sort of mandatory documents must we order, what sort of special conditions we normally see that comes with the contract for sale, to calculation of the final amount receivable or payable in the form of a settlement adjustment sheet.
Common FAQ’s
Sydney Conveyancing process
– what you (purchaser/vendor) need to do before and after Exchange
We list here some of the more commonly asked questions.
One question we get asked a lot relates to Exchange. What is Exchange exactly?
Other more common questions we hear from clients is after Exchange, “What’s the next step?”
Below, we summarise what a purchaser and a vendor need to do, or asked by solicitors to do, to ensure that property conveyancing glides towards settlement smoothly.
What is Exchange exactly?
Exchange means:
1) You (either as a purchaser or vendor) sign on the contract for sale;
2) The other party (your counterpart vendor or purchaser) signs on an identical contract for sale;
3) You, if you are the purchaser, pays the initial 0.25% deposit to the real estate agent’s trust account;
4) The real estate agent dates BOTH copies of the contracts for sale. He then posts the vendor-signed copy to the purchaser solicitor, and the purchaser-signed copy to the vendor solicitor.
Only when these 4 steps are completed is Exchange performed.
What a purchaser needs to do?
– Before Exchange, we would have read the contract and written to the Vendor solicitor to amend or delete terms that are more detrimental to you. If you have not given us time to do this, we would do this step between Exchange and expiry of the Cooling-off period.
1) When you are ready to buy the property, the real estate agent will do the exchange – i.e. you will visit the real estate agent, the agent will tell you where to sign on the contract, and you will pay 0.25% of the purchase price as an initial deposit. Your cooling-off period starts from the day you sign the contract.
2) Immediately after you exchange at the real estate agent’s, you must arrange with your mortgage broker or bank to quickly approve your unconditional loan approval. You will want to be emailed the unconditional loan letter from the bank BEFORE cooling-off period expires. This of course is to ensure that you have the loan to help pay for your purchase when settlement comes.
When you fill out the bank’s loan documents, please give the bank “debit authority” on a bank account where the bank can draw your monies from (shortfall funds) so as to have enough funds to settle.
3) Optional – During the cooling-off period, you can tell us to have the building and/or pest report done. We will ensure that you will have the reports before the expiry of the cooling-off period. This is so that if the building and/or pest reports are bad, you can walk away from the purchase by instructing us to rescind the contract before the expiry of the cooling-off period.
4a) If you decide to proceed with the purchase, before 5pm on the day cooling-off period expires, please arrange with the real estate agent to pay up the balance of the deposit monies. This could be 4.75% or 9.75% of the purchase price, depending on what was negotiated between you and the real estate agent before exchange.
4b) If you decide you are NOT proceeding with the purchase, for example your loan is not approved for whatever reason, you can instruct us to i) request the Vendor solicitor to extend your cooling-off period; or ii) write to the Vendor solicitor to rescind the contract.
5) After you have paid up the balance of the deposit before cooling-off period expires, the contract is now unconditional. We will ask you to fill out the following forms: Purchaser/Transferee Declaration form, Pexa Client Authorisation form, and/or First Home Buyers Assistance Scheme form (if you are a first home buyer and this house you are buying is less than $800,000).
The Purchaser/Transferee Declaration form and the First Home Buyers Assistance Scheme form, these are required for Revenue NSW stamp duty purposes. Pexa Client Authorisation form is so that you authorise us to act on your behalf on the mandatory Pexa electronic settlement platform.
6) You need to sign or declare on the forms, and email us the completed forms with certified copies of some of your IDs. Hence, you do not need to visit us at all if it is inconvenient for you.
– If you are not visiting our office, you must email us certified copies of your Australian birth certificate, or Australian passport, or Australian citizenship certificate. If you are a permanent resident, you need to email us certified copy of your foreign passport with current visa, and movement records from the Department of Immigration. Here are explanatory notes on these ID documents.
– If you are a first home buyer, you also need to email us a copy of your Australian birth certificate (if you are born in Australia), or a copy of your foreign passport and current Australian permanent residency visa / Australian citizenship certificate, AND copies of your Australian driver’s licence and Medicare card. Click for more details on acceptable ID documents for first home buyers.
7) You must notify us which bank you are borrowing your loan from, so we can invite them to settle on the Pexa workspace.
– After you have given us the forms and certified ID documents, there is nothing much else for you to do. We will do all that is required behind the scenes (if interested, have a look at our comprehensive Conveyancing – Buying web pages).
8) A couple of days before settlement, we will tell you the shortfall monies required for your purchase. You will need to ensure you have this amount of shortfall funds sitting in your bank account by morning of settlement day.
9) Either 1 or 2 days before settlement, please arrange with the real estate agent to do a final inspection of the property. If say the state of the property is worse off now than what you saw during exchange, or some furniture/rubbish have not been removed, please let us know. We can withhold an amount during settlement, while allowing the vendor some time to fix up the issue after settlement. If the vendor does not fix up the issue, then the withheld amount goes to you.
– On settlement day, after it’s settled, we’ll ring/text or email to tell you that all is settled, and you can then go to the real estate agent’s to pick up the keys to your house.
What a seller needs to do?
– Before Exchange, we would have agreed or not agreed to amend the terms the Purchaser solicitor asked for. If not done so before exchange, we’ll most likely do so between Exchange and expiry of the Cooling-off period.
1) When your real estate agent has found a serious buyer and you are ready to do the exchange, you will visit the real estate agent and the agent will guide you on where to sign on the contract.
– You then wait till cooling-off period expires and you are told by your real estate agent that the buyer has paid up the full deposit.
2) Now, we will send you discharge of mortgage form for you to fill out and inform your bank that you have found a buyer and that you will be discharging your mortgage on settlement day.
On this form, you could give the bank “authority to collect surplus funds”, so that on settlement day, the bank will deposit any surplus monies from your sale into your nominated bank account.
3) If your sale price is more than $750,000, you need to apply for the foreign resident capital gains withholding clearance certificate. Once you have the clearance certificate from the ATO, please email it to us.
4) The only form you need to fill out and email to us is the Pexa Client Authorisation form. By signing this form, you authorise us to act on your behalf on the mandatory Pexa electronic settlement platform. We will also need a certified copy of your ID.
– A couple of days before settlement, we’ll inform you how much you can expect as surplus from your sale.
– After settlement, we’ll notify you that all is settled and you can then arrange with the real estate agent to release the deposit monies to you.
Shall I do a building and/or pest inspection?
This is a business decision that only you can make. Afterall, these are extra charges – the company we recommend charges $200 for a building report, $250 for a pest report. On average, about 20-30% of our clients choose to do a building and/or pest inspection.
Normally, these inspections are ordered during the cooling off period. If the building report shows major faults, then you can either walk away from the purchase (in which case, you will lose the 0.25% deposit paid when you pull out during the cooling off period), or you use it as a bargaining chip with the vendor (like ask for a reduction in the purchase price, which the vendor can either accept or reject).
Eg. We had a client who ordered a building inspection and found that there were high humidity readings in the walls of the shower area. The client then got a quote to fix it. We then presented the report and the quote to the vendor solicitor, and the vendor agreed to pay for half the costs of the fix.
Eg. Purchase of a house (total final cost)
For a standard purchase conveyancing of a house say, it’ll be:
Our fees and all mandatory searches ($1,299),
+ Pexa fees ($137.39, charged by Pexa),
+ Lodgements fees ($171.70 each, charged by Land Registry NSW),
+ any bank fees and charges (charged by your lender, which we are not informed of).
Lodgment fees are charged by Land Registry NSW to a) record in their database that you are the new owner, via lodgement of the “Transfer” form, and b) record in their database that you have a mortgage going on title, via lodgement of the “Mortgage” form. Each lodgement costs $171.70, so if you have a mortgage, these lodgement fees are $343.40.
So, on settlement day, you will end up paying $1,299 + $137.39 + $343.40 = $1,779.79.
Eg. Sale of a typical house (total final cost)
For a standard sale conveyancing of a typical house say, it’ll be:
Our fees and all mandatory disclosure documents ($1,400),
+ Pexa fees ($137.39, charged by Pexa),
+ Lodgements fees ($171.70, charged by Land Registry NSW),
+ any bank fees and charges (charged by your lender, which we are not informed of).
Lodgment fees are charged by Land Registry NSW to record in their database that you no longer have a mortgage, via lodgement of the “Discharge of Mortgage” form. This lodgement costs $171.70.
So, on settlement day, you will end up paying $1,400 + $137.39 + $171.70 = $1,709.09.
For your peace of mind, we promise:
- The price we state here IS the final price you pay for a standard conveyance; no hidden surprises, nothing more for you to pay!
- The disbursements are real; these are the cost price of mandatory certificates and/or disclosure documents we need to order and pay for, and/or price we pay outside agency for doing stamping. We do not hike up disbursements costs, nor charge you for non-existant or unnecessary disbursements like “file opening fee” or “settlement attendance fee”.
- When you call or email us about your matter, we will promptly answer you (if we can’t answer when you ring, we will call you back or email you within the day). We will not go missing on you!
- We will guide you every step of the way.
- We have years of experience in different facets of law, in particular in conveyancing, we know what course to take should unexpected things happen during your conveyancing matter.
- In short, we are competent, will not leave you in the lurch, and contactable!
Testimonials
If you would like us to do all the legal work for your impending sale or purchase of property, please call us.
Let us know if you have a real estate agent involved. If this is a sale, we can email the contract for sale to the real estate agent so that s/he can start marketing your property for sale. If this is a purchase, have the real estate agent email us the contract.
If you are a developer and would like a quote for us to do off-the-plan contracts for your development, and all the conveyance work till final settlement, please also do not hesitate to call us.
Our contact details:
Email: info@dsplaw.com.au
Mobile: 0466 278 034
Address for mail: PO Box 186, Auburn NSW 1835
(If you call and I am unable to answer, please text or whatsapp a brief description and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.)