What conveyancing costs in Victoria, and what drives the price

A conveyancing quote is two different numbers stacked on top of each other, and the firm only sets one of them.

The first number is the professional fee. That covers the work: reading the contract, ordering the searches, checking the vendor statement, preparing the transfer, doing the settlement adjustments, then settling electronically. The second number is disbursements, money paid to other organisations on your behalf: a title search from the Land Registry, a rates certificate from your council, a water information statement, and the registration fees when the transfer is lodged.

Firms compete on the first number. Nobody competes on the second, because somebody else fixes it. Once you can see which is which, comparing two quotes stops being guesswork.

The searches and certificates, and what each one costs

These are the disbursements. Each one is set by the body that issues it, not by your conveyancer.

Certificate or search	Who issues it	2026-27 cost
Property clearance certificate (land tax)	State Revenue Office	$20.00
Land information certificate (council rates)	Your council	$31.40 standard, $80.40 urgent at Knox
Information statement (water and sewerage)	South East Water	$32.72 per property
Title, plan and instrument searches	Land Registry, through LANDATA	per item, published in the LSV schedule

Each of those deserves a note.

The property clearance certificate from the State Revenue Office went from $19.50 to $20.00 on 1 July 2026 (source). It tells you whether land tax, the commercial and industrial property tax or windfall gains tax is charged against the land, and the SRO notes that the amount shown is secured against the property itself. That is why it matters to a buyer, not only to a seller.

The land information certificate is your council's. Knox publishes $31.40 for a standard certificate in 2026-27, and $80.40 for an expedited one, with three business days for the standard and one for the urgent. Check your own council's published figure, because the urgent rate is roughly two and a half times the standard and it is easy to trigger by accident on a short settlement.

The water information statement for the Cranbourne corridor comes from South East Water at $32.72 per property, and that single fee covers both South East Water's encumbrances and Melbourne Water's (2026-27 Pricing Handbook, section 3.2.2).

Title, plan and instrument searches come out of the Land Registry through LANDATA, and Land Services Victoria publishes the per-item charges in its 2026-27 fee and service schedules. On this part of the bill the count matters more than the unit price, because a title carrying four covenants and two easements needs a separate instrument search for each one, while a plain title in a new Clyde North estate may need almost none.

If the land fronts an arterial road, a road authority certificate shows whether a declared road proposal affects it. That one is ordered per property and passed through at whatever the authority charges.

The biggest disbursement is the registration fee, and it scales with price

This is the line people miss. Registering a transfer of land is not a flat charge. For an electronic transfer on sale in 2026-27 it is $104.30 plus $2.34 for every whole $1,000 of the consideration, rounded up to the next whole dollar, capped at $3,614.00. You do not have to take that on trust, because Land Services Victoria publishes an official transfer of land fees calculator you can run yourself.

Run it on a real number. A house in Clyde North at $750,000:

1. Base fee: $104.30
2. Value component: 750 x $2.34 = $1,755.00
3. Total, rounded up: $1,860

The same transfer lodged on paper returns $1,870 on that calculator, so electronic lodgment is slightly cheaper as well as faster.

If you are borrowing, the mortgage has to be registered, and on the seller's side the existing one has to be discharged. Each is a separate registry fee, and the electronic lodgment network charges for running the transaction. None are large next to the transfer fee, but they should appear as their own lines.

On a purchase at that price the registration fee is the single biggest item in the disbursement column. A quote that buries it in an "approx." line is not a complete quote. When you are weighing up a property purchase, ask for it separately so you can check it against the calculator yourself.

One thing that is not a conveyancing cost at all: land transfer duty. It goes to the State Revenue Office rather than to your conveyancer, and it sits outside every quote you will receive. The SRO's land transfer duty pages have a calculator for it.

What actually makes a matter more expensive

The professional fee moves for reasons that have almost nothing to do with the price of the house. A $1.2 million property on a plain suburban title can be simpler than a $560,000 unit.

An owners corporation

An apartment, or a unit on a common driveway, needs an owners corporation certificate, and somebody has to read the minutes, the budget, the insurance and the maintenance plan that come with it. The fee is capped by regulation in fee units, and the fee unit is $17.27 for 2026-27 (Department of Treasury and Finance). Consumer Affairs Victoria publishes the caps, all excluding GST: 9.64 fee units for a certificate supplied within 6 to 10 business days, which is about $166, rising to 17.35 fee units, about $300, if you need it inside two business days.

Off the plan, or unregistered land

Off the plan means a longer file, a sunset date to watch, variations to the plan to check, and a settlement date that cannot be locked in until the plan registers.

Unregistered land is common right through Clyde, Clyde North and Botanic Ridge. There is no title yet, so searches are done against the parent parcel and repeated once the child title issues. Settlement moves when the developer's plan registers, not when you would like it to.

Deceased estates, paper settlements and rescheduling

Once a grant of representation is in hand, the transmission application to the personal representative is a registry step of its own, carrying its own lodgment fee. Obtaining the grant is not conveyancing work. That is a job for a solicitor, and any conveyancer who tells you otherwise is working outside their licence.

Victorian conveyancing runs electronically now. Under section 106A of the Transfer of Land Act 1958 the Registrar will not accept paper lodgment of instruments that can go through an electronic lodgment network, except where they genuinely cannot. The few that fall back to paper cost more at the registry. And a settlement that moves means rebooking, fresh final searches, updated adjustments and a penalty interest calculation, which is real work done twice.

Fixed fee or estimate, and why the difference matters

A fixed professional fee means one thing only: the firm's own fee will not move. Disbursements still vary, because nobody knows how many covenants a title carries until it is pulled.

An estimate is a starting number. It can move, and it is meant to.

Victorian law is unusually direct about this. A licensed conveyancer must tell you the amount of the costs if it is known, or the basis for calculating them if it is not, before or at the time they are retained. If they do not, Consumer Affairs Victoria says the client is not required to pay them. That is worth knowing before you sign anything.

Consumer Affairs also gives buyers and sellers plain advice on shopping around: obtain written quotes from several, and discuss all disbursements.

Seven questions to ask when you compare two quotes

1. Is that number the professional fee only, or fee plus disbursements?
2. Does it include GST?
3. Which disbursements are inside the number and which are charged at cost on top?
4. Is the professional fee fixed, and what would make it change?
5. What happens if settlement is delayed or the contract is terminated?
6. Who will actually handle my file, and can I reach them directly?
7. Is there a separate charge for reviewing a contract before I sign?

Ask the same seven of every firm and the quotes become comparable.

Warning signs that a quote will grow

A number given before anyone has asked what you are buying. Nobody can price a matter without knowing whether there is an owners corporation, or whether the land is even registered yet.

Disbursements shown as one "approx." line with no itemised list behind it.

Extras that surface later with names like file opening, archiving, document storage or bank cheque handling. None of those are disbursements. They are professional fee, renamed.

No written costs disclosure at the start. Under the rule above, that is not just a service problem.

FAQ

Is stamp duty part of my conveyancing fee?

No. Land transfer duty is a state tax paid to the State Revenue Office, and it is separate from both the professional fee and the disbursements. Your conveyancer calculates it, includes it in the settlement figures and arranges payment, but it is not their charge. On most purchases it is far larger than everything else in this article combined.

Is GST included in the figures I have been quoted?

Ask, because the treatment varies line by line. Professional fees attract GST. Some statutory charges do not, and others are published without it, which is easy to miss: the owners corporation certificate caps set out by Consumer Affairs Victoria are stated excluding GST. The practical move is to ask each firm for one GST-inclusive total, so you are comparing the same thing.

Who pays for the certificates, the buyer or the seller?

The seller pays for the certificates that go into the vendor statement, because those are what make the property saleable. Consumer Affairs Victoria confirms the statement must disclose title details, covenants, easements, zoning and outgoings, plus an owners corporation certificate where one applies. Buyers pay for their own searches and the registration fees. If you are selling, those costs land at the start rather than the end.

Can I get a quote before I sign the contract?

Yes, and it is the right moment to ask. Send the contract and vendor statement across and a conveyancer can price the matter properly, because those documents answer the questions that drive the fee. It also means someone reads the contract before you are bound by it.

Ask us for a quote on your property

Send us the contract and the vendor statement and we will tell you what the matter involves and what it will cost, itemised, before you commit to anything. Every figure above is a real third-party charge for 2026-27, and you should be able to find each one on your own statement.

Our office is on High Street in Cranbourne, and we act across the corridor from Clyde North out to Berwick, Pakenham and Officer. Because settlements run electronically in Victoria, we can act anywhere else in the state too.

Ask us for a quote, or get in touch and we will talk it through.

This article is general information about Victorian conveyancing and is not legal advice for your particular transaction. Speak to us about your specific circumstances.