What does a conveyancer or solicitor do when buying a house in Australia?

A conveyancer or solicitor manages the legal transfer of property ownership from seller to buyer. In practice, that means reviewing the contract of sale before you’re locked in, running title and property searches, calculating the adjustments owed between buyer and seller at settlement, and coordinating with the other side’s representative and your lender so the property legally becomes yours on settlement day.

Conveyancing is the legal term for this whole process — everything that has to happen, on paper and with the relevant land titles registry, to move legal ownership of a property from one party to another.

What’s the difference between a conveyancer and a solicitor?

A solicitor is a qualified lawyer who can handle conveyancing as part of a broader legal practice — including advice on disputes, deceased estates, or contract issues that go beyond a standard purchase. A licensed conveyancer specialises specifically in property transactions. Depending on the state, a licensed conveyancer may not hold a law degree at all; the licence is a separate qualification aimed at conveyancing work.

For a straightforward purchase, both can complete the job. Which one suits you better depends on how complex your transaction is and whether you expect to need broader legal advice along the way — that’s a call worth making with the professional themselves, not a rule that applies to every purchase.

What does a conveyancer or solicitor actually do, step by step?

Before you sign: contract review

Before you’re committed, your conveyancer or solicitor reviews the contract of sale — checking special conditions, your cooling-off rights (which vary by state and sale method), and anything that needs to be negotiated or queried with the seller’s side before you sign.

Property and title searches

A title search confirms who legally owns the property and whether anything affects it — a mortgage still registered, an easement, a caveat, or a covenant restricting how the land can be used. Depending on the state and the property, other searches can include council and zoning checks, and building or pool-compliance searches.

Settlement adjustments

Costs like council rates and water charges are apportioned between buyer and seller as at the settlement date — the seller shouldn’t pay for a period after they no longer own the property, and neither should you pay for a period before you did. Your conveyancer calculates these adjustments and prepares the settlement figures accordingly.

Coordinating settlement itself

On settlement day, your conveyancer or solicitor liaises with the seller’s representative and your lender so the property transfer and the lender’s mortgage register with the state’s titles office at the same time. They’ll typically also arrange payment of transfer (stamp) duty at settlement — as at July 2026, current duty settings for all eight states and territories are set out in our guide to first home buyer stamp duty concessions by state. Once everything is registered, you’re confirmed to collect keys.

Do I need a conveyancer, or can I do it myself?

Whether self-conveyancing is legally permitted, and under what conditions, is set by each state’s Fair Trading or Consumer Affairs body — check your state’s relevant authority for the position that applies. Where it is permitted, doing your own conveyancing means taking on the searches, contract review and settlement coordination yourself, with no professional checking your work along the way. Whether that trade-off makes sense depends on how comfortable you are with legal paperwork and how straightforward your purchase is — a conveyancer or solicitor can point out risks in a contract that an untrained eye is more likely to miss.

How does licensing work for conveyancers and solicitors?

Who’s allowed to practise conveyancing, and what they need to hold to do it, is set by each state and territory’s own legislation — it isn’t uniform across Australia. The specific licensing requirements for conveyancers versus solicitors are set by each state’s Fair Trading, Consumer Affairs or Law Society body — check the relevant state regulator for the licensing regime that applies. Before engaging anyone, it’s worth checking their current licence or practising certificate directly with the relevant state regulator or law society, rather than assuming a title alone confirms it.

Choosing between a conveyancer and a solicitor

There’s no single right choice here — it depends on your state, the complexity of your purchase, and your own comfort level with legal process. Getting quotes from both a licensed conveyancer and a solicitor, and asking each what they’d flag in your specific contract, is a reasonable way to decide which is the right fit for your purchase.