Whether you are buying a terrace in St Thomas, selling a family home in Pennsylvania or picking up a flat near the quay, you will need conveyancing: the legal process that moves ownership of a property from seller to buyer. This guide explains what conveyancing in Exeter involves, what the fees actually cover, how long the process takes and a few local details worth knowing before you instruct a solicitor.
What you are paying for
A conveyancing quote is made up of the firm’s legal fee plus disbursements, the third-party costs your solicitor pays out and passes on at cost. On a purchase, the legal work includes verifying the seller’s title, ordering and reviewing searches, raising enquiries, checking your mortgage offer, exchanging contracts, completing the purchase, paying stamp duty to HMRC and registering you at HM Land Registry. On a sale the job is mostly preparing the contract pack, answering the buyer’s enquiries and paying off your mortgage from the proceeds.
Legal fees differ from firm to firm, and leasehold properties cost more to convey than freehold because the lease and management information need reviewing. Regulated firms must publish their residential conveyancing prices online, which makes comparing an Exeter conveyancing solicitor against a national firm reasonably painless. Get at least two or three itemised quotes rather than relying on any single published average.
Some disbursements are fixed. The HM Land Registry fee for registering a purchase between £100,001 and £200,000 is £100 when submitted digitally, and £150 for purchases between £200,001 and £500,000, a band that covers the majority of Exeter homes. Search fees vary by council and provider, so check the figures on your quote.
The searches, and why they matter in Exeter
Three searches appear on almost every purchase. The local authority search covers planning history, road schemes, enforcement notices and charges owed to the council. The water and drainage search shows how the property connects to mains water and sewers, which in this region means South West Water’s records. The environmental search reports on flood risk and land contamination.
Two Exeter-specific points here. First, parts of the city sit close to the River Exe, so pay attention to the flood risk section of your environmental search and ask your solicitor to follow up on anything unclear. Second, the local search goes to the council that covers the property. That is Exeter City Council within the city, but plenty of buyers searching for homes “in Exeter” end up just over the boundary in East Devon, Teignbridge or Mid Devon, each of which runs its own land charges service with its own fees and turnaround times.
If you are buying near the university as an investment, one more check is worth requesting: ask your solicitor to confirm whether planning restrictions on shared houses (HMOs) apply to the property, as Exeter has used planning controls to limit new shared housing in some neighbourhoods.
Stamp duty on a typical Exeter home
The median sale price across the EX postcode area in the year to March 2026 was around £290,000, based on Land Registry sold price data. On a £290,000 home that will be your only property, Stamp Duty Land Tax under the current rates comes to:
- 0% on the first £125,000: £0
- 2% on £125,001 to £250,000: £2,500
- 5% on the remaining £40,000: £2,000
That is £4,500. The happier news for first-time buyers: relief applies to the first £300,000, so a first-time buyer at £290,000 pays nothing at all. Buying an additional property, such as a buy-to-let or holiday home, usually adds a 5% surcharge across the bands. The tax is due within 14 days of completion and your solicitor handles the payment. Rates change, so run your own figure through the calculator on gov.uk before budgeting.
How long conveyancing takes
No honest firm will promise a completion date at the outset. As a working guide, a straightforward freehold purchase or sale commonly takes around 8 to 12 weeks from instructing a solicitor to completion. Leasehold usually takes longer, because management packs have to be ordered from third parties who work at their own pace. Chains add further risk, since the slowest link sets the speed for everyone.
Where does the time actually go? Searches take days to a few weeks depending on the council. Enquiries, the back-and-forth where the buyer’s solicitor asks questions and the seller’s side answers, are the most common source of drift. You can shorten your own transaction by returning paperwork and ID checks immediately, chasing your mortgage offer early, and choosing a firm that responds quickly, which brings us to the next section.
Choosing an Exeter conveyancing solicitor
Check accreditation
The Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) marks firms assessed for technical standards and client service. Solicitors are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, and licensed conveyancers by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers. Both do the same job; just make sure your firm is one or the other.
Confirm lender panel membership
If you have a mortgage, the firm needs to be on your lender’s panel to act for both you and the bank. Ask up front, because finding out late means paying twice or switching firms mid-transaction.
Compare quotes line by line
A proper conveyancing quote in Exeter itemises the legal fee, VAT, each search, the Land Registry fee, bank transfer charges and any leasehold or new build supplements. Ask what you owe if the transaction falls through: some firms offer no sale, no fee cover, others bill for work done.
Judge responsiveness before you commit
How quickly a firm answers your initial enquiry is a fair preview of how it will handle your case. A named contact, direct email and online case tracking all help. This matters more than geography: an Exeter office is convenient for dropping off documents and ID, but a responsive firm elsewhere will beat a slow one around the corner.
A note on the local market
Exeter is one of the South West’s steadier markets, but it has cooled recently. The average price across the EX postcode area fell about 4% in the year to March 2026, to roughly £336,000, with the median at £290,000, and the number of sales dropped too. For buyers, a slower market has a practical upside: sellers and their solicitors tend to be more responsive, and there is less pressure to skip diligence to win a race. Terraced homes, a big slice of Exeter’s stock, averaged around £259,000, while flats averaged £199,000, so many first-time buyers in the city fall entirely inside the stamp duty relief threshold.
Before you instruct anyone
Get two or three itemised quotes, confirm CQS accreditation or CLC regulation, check the firm is on your lender’s panel, and ask about the fall-through policy and how updates are provided. The difference between a good Exeter conveyancing solicitor and a bad one is rarely visible in the headline fee. It shows up six weeks in, when one firm is chasing enquiries and the other has your file at the bottom of a pile.
