Shared ownership solicitors: what they do, fees to expect

What do shared ownership solicitors do?

Shared ownership solicitors do everything a conveyancer does on an ordinary purchase, plus the extra work of buying a share of a home under a long lease from a housing association or council. They check the lease and explain what it commits you to. They get the landlord’s consent to your mortgage. They advise you on the stamp duty choice. And they register your lease at the Land Registry (Homes England guidance). GOV.UK says your solicitor will give you a list of buying costs and go through it with you (GOV.UK).

Conveyancing is the legal work of transferring property. In shared ownership there are three parties rather than two, you, the landlord and your lender, and the document that binds them is a lease that runs for at least 990 years on new homes built under the 2021 rules, and often far less on older ones. Getting the lease wrong is expensive and hard to undo, which is why the choice of solicitor matters more here than on a normal flat. This page does not recommend any firm; it tells you what the work involves, what it costs and what to ask.

Why is shared ownership conveyancing different?

Every shared ownership home is leasehold (GOV.UK), and the lease is written to a model that Homes England and the lenders’ trade bodies agree between them. Homes England’s guidance lists the clauses every lease must have (Homes England guidance). In plain terms:

• You cannot sell or rent out the home without going through the landlord first (the lease calls these the “alienation provisions”).
• If your lender repossesses, it can recover its loss from the landlord’s share (the “mortgagee protection clause”, which is why lenders accept shared ownership at all).
• The lease says how and when the rent rises (the “rent review clause”).
• It says how you buy more shares (the “staircasing provisions”).
• In some rural areas you can never own more than 80% (a “designated protected area” restriction).
• The landlord gets the first chance to find the next buyer when you sell (its “right of first refusal”).

Your solicitor has to read all of that, check it matches the key information document (the summary sheet of the home’s costs and rules that the landlord must give you before you commit), and explain it to you in plain terms: how much rent, how it rises, what you can buy and when, how you sell, who fixes what. Homes England’s guidance also says the conveyancer must obtain the landlord’s consent to the mortgage, a step ordinary purchases do not have.

Then there is stamp duty. On a shared ownership purchase you can pay once on the full market value or pay in stages on your share, and the choice goes on the return your solicitor files within 14 days of completion, or can be made up to 12 months after the return deadline (HMRC; GOV.UK). A solicitor who does not raise this with you before exchange has missed something; the stamp duty page explains what is at stake.

Step by step: what happens between offer and keys

1. Reservation. You pay the landlord a reservation fee of up to £500 (GOV.UK) and instruct your solicitor. Give them the key information document and the landlord’s sales pack.
2. Lease pack. The landlord’s solicitor sends the draft lease, the title, the service charge accounts and estimates, planning documents and, on a new build, the warranty details.
3. Searches and enquiries. Your solicitor orders local authority, drainage and environmental searches and raises questions with the landlord’s solicitor about anything unclear.
4. Mortgage. Your lender issues its offer. Your solicitor checks it against the lease, confirms the lender accepts this landlord’s lease and obtains the landlord’s consent to the mortgage.
5. Report. You get a written report on the lease and title. Read every page and ask about anything you do not follow; this is the moment to walk away cheaply.
6. Stamp duty decision. Your solicitor gives you both figures, the market value election and paying in stages, and you choose.
7. Exchange. You pay the deposit, usually 5% to 10% of your share (GOV.UK), and the completion date is fixed.
8. Completion and after. Money moves, you get the keys, the stamp duty return goes in within 14 days, the lease is registered at the Land Registry and the landlord is notified of your lender’s charge.

A new-build purchase adds a wrinkle: exchange often happens before the home is finished, with completion on notice once it is ready, so make sure your mortgage offer will still be valid on the likely completion date.

What do shared ownership solicitor fees cost in 2026?

The HomeOwners Alliance puts the average conveyancing bill when buying a home at £1,509 including disbursements and VAT, says leasehold purchases cost around £300 more in legal fees, and notes that shared ownership legal fees may be higher again, in its guide updated on 2 September 2026 (HomeOwners Alliance). Disbursements are the costs your solicitor pays out on your behalf and passes on.

Put those together and a realistic budget for a shared ownership purchase is the £1,509 average plus roughly £300 for leasehold, so around £1,800, before any extra the firm charges for the shared ownership work itself and before any contribution towards the landlord’s legal costs. Treat £2,000 as a floor when you plan your cash, and ask each firm to itemise anything above it. The HomeOwners Alliance also warns that a fixed legal fee does not make your whole bill fixed, because disbursements sit outside it, and that a no sale, no fee promise needs reading to see what it covers.

Worked example: reading a quote

Suppose you are buying a 40% share of a £300,000 new-build flat and receive this quote: legal fee £1,150 plus VAT, searches £320, Land Registry fee £250, bank transfer £25, identity checks £15, plus a £150 charge for dealing with the landlord’s lease and a £95 charge for the stamp duty return. The illustrative figures sit inside the ranges above.

Three questions arise from this quote. Is the £150 for the lease work fixed, or will it grow if the landlord’s solicitor is slow? Does the stamp duty charge include advice on the election, or just filing the form? And is there any charge from the landlord’s side not shown here? If the firm cannot answer all three in writing, that tells you something.

Questions to ask before you instruct a solicitor

• How many shared ownership purchases have you completed in the last 12 months, and how many on the 2021 new model lease?
• Is the fee fixed, and exactly which disbursements sit outside it?
• Are you on my lender’s panel (the list of firms the lender allows to act for it), and have you acted on this landlord’s lease before?
• Will you give me a written report on the lease covering rent reviews, staircasing, the nomination period on sale, repairs and any 80% cap?
• Will you set out both stamp duty options with figures before exchange?
• Will I be asked to pay anything towards the landlord’s legal costs, and if so how much?
• Who will actually do the work, how do I contact them, and how long do you expect it to take?
• What happens to your fee if the purchase falls through?

What can go wrong?

The lease is not what the key information document described, and nobody notices until after exchange. The lender turns out not to accept the landlord’s lease, weeks into the process. The stamp duty election is never discussed, and a buyer who would have paid nothing under the election ends up with a standard-rate bill years later when they staircase past 80%. The landlord’s consent to the mortgage arrives late and the completion date slips past the mortgage offer’s expiry. Each of these is avoidable by a firm that does this work often and by a buyer who reads the report.

How does this compare with Your First Home?

Your First Home, the new government equity loan, gives you 100% ownership with a 2.5% deposit and a 20% government loan (GOV.UK). The conveyancing is a normal new-build purchase plus the paperwork for the government’s loan, which is secured on the home; there is no shared ownership lease, no landlord’s consent and no stamp duty election, because stamp duty is worked out on the full price. The detailed rules, including how the loan is documented, come at the Budget on 28 October 2026. The Your First Home vs Shared Ownership page compares the two schemes end to end.

What to do next

• Ask the landlord for the key information document and the draft lease before you pay the reservation fee.
• Get three fixed-fee quotes using the questions above, and check each firm is on your lender’s panel.
• Read the stamp duty page so you can judge the advice you are given.
• Put the total legal budget, at least £2,000, into your cash plan alongside the deposit and reservation fee.