A private land sale removes the estate agent. It does not remove the conveyancer, and this is the single most important thing to understand before you start.
Land in England and Wales transfers by deed, and that transfer must be registered at HM Land Registry to take effect at law. A transfer that is badly drafted, or never registered, can leave a buyer having paid for land they do not legally own, and a seller still showing as proprietor years later. The cost of fixing that dwarfs the fee you were trying to save.
The good news is that the conveyancing in a private sale is no more complicated than in an agented one. It is the same process, the same documents and the same fee. You just have to instruct it yourself.
Why You Cannot Skip It
People occasionally ask whether two willing parties can simply exchange money and a signed piece of paper. The answer is that they can create a mess, and frequently do.
Registration is what makes ownership public and enforceable. Until the transfer is registered, the buyer holds at best an equitable interest, and the register continues to name the seller. That has practical consequences: the buyer cannot easily mortgage or resell, a subsequent purchaser from the seller may take priority, and if either party dies or becomes insolvent in the interval the position becomes genuinely difficult.
There is also the question of what is being transferred. Land is rarely just an area on a map. It comes with rights attached and burdens running with it, and a transfer deed that does not deal with them properly stores up an argument for whoever owns the land in twenty years.
What The Solicitor Actually Does
Understanding the work makes the fee easier to judge, and tells you what to chase.
On The Seller's Side
The seller's solicitor assembles and issues the contract pack: the draft contract, official copies of the register and title plan, copies of anything referred to on the title, and replies to standard enquiries.
For farmland that pack is usually fatter than a residential one. It may need to include grazing or tenancy agreements, wayleave and easement documents, drainage plans, abstraction licences, and evidence of who maintains boundaries and outfalls.
The seller's solicitor then answers the buyer's enquiries, negotiates the contract, arranges exchange, and on completion accounts for the money and discharges any mortgage over the land.
On The Buyer's Side
The buyer's solicitor investigates title, raises enquiries, orders searches, reports to the buyer on what they have found, and deals with the lender if there is one. After completion they submit the Stamp Duty Land Tax return and apply to register the transfer.
The reporting stage is the one that matters most to a buyer. A good solicitor will tell you plainly what is wrong with the land, not just list the documents. If the report does not mention access, ask about access.
The Farmland Problems That Surface
These are the issues that make rural conveyancing different, and the reason a generalist conveyancer is a false economy.
Legal access. The commonest and most serious defect. A track used for forty years with a neighbour's blessing confers no right. Land without a legal right of way to an adopted highway is hard to mortgage, hard to resell and worth substantially less. This must be established, not assumed.
Unregistered title. Around a tenth of land in England and Wales remains unregistered, disproportionately farmland held in the same family for generations. Title must then be proved from deeds, starting with a good root of title, usually a conveyance at least fifteen years old. It is slower and it requires judgement.
Overage and clawback. A provision entitling a former owner to a share of any uplift if planning permission is later granted. These survive multiple sales, are easy to overlook, and can make a development plan worthless. Every buyer should ask specifically.
Reserved rights. Mineral rights and sporting rights are frequently held separately from the surface. So are pipelines, cables and telecoms apparatus, which travel with easements and wayleaves that may restrict what you can build.
Occupation. Whether anyone farms or grazes the land, and under what agreement. A grazing licence, a Farm Business Tenancy and an Agricultural Holdings Act tenancy give very different rights, and the last can effectively deny vacant possession for a generation. If the sale is with tenants in place, that needs to be priced and documented, not glossed over.
Boundaries. Registered title plans show general boundaries only. They are not a precise statement of where the line falls, and where the hedge and the plan disagree, resolving it is a job for the solicitor and sometimes a surveyor.
Selling Part Of A Title
This deserves its own warning, because it is where private sales most often stumble on technicalities.
If you are selling part of your land rather than a whole registered title, you need a plan that meets HM Land Registry's requirements: correctly scaled, showing sufficient detail to identify the land on the ground, and with the parcel clearly edged. A sketch will be rejected, usually weeks after completion when everyone has moved on.
You also have to think about what each side needs afterwards. Does the retained land still have access? Do services cross the sold land? Does either party need rights of drainage or maintenance over the other? These are dealt with in the transfer deed, and if they are not dealt with then, they are dealt with in a dispute later.
Budget more time and more fee for a sale of part. It is a genuinely bigger job.
What It Costs
| Item | Typical range | Notes | As of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sale, registered whole title | £900 - £1,800 + VAT | Straightforward, vacant possession | August 2026 |
| Purchase, registered whole title | £1,000 - £2,000 + VAT | Add lender's requirements if borrowing | August 2026 |
| Sale of part | £1,500 - £3,000 + VAT | Plus plan preparation | August 2026 |
| Unregistered title | £1,800 - £4,000 + VAT | Proving title from deeds takes time | August 2026 |
| Land Registry plan | £150 - £600 | Surveyor or plan drafting service | August 2026 |
| Land Registry fees | Scale, by value | Payable by the buyer on registration | August 2026 |
Figures are indicative and vary by firm and county. Get two or three quotes, and make sure each is quoting for the same job: a quote for a "land sale" that assumes a clean registered whole title will be revised sharply upward when the sale of part emerges.
Set against the commission a private sale saves, these fees are modest. They are also the wrong place to economise.
Choosing The Right Solicitor
Three practical rules.
Instruct your own. Buyers in particular should never use a solicitor recommended or chosen by the seller. The rules restrict one firm acting for both parties where a conflict exists, and in a land sale it usually does. The Law Society maintains a searchable directory of firms.
Insist on rural experience. Ask directly how many farmland transactions the firm handles a year. A conveyancer whose work is overwhelmingly residential will not instinctively ask about sporting rights, abstraction or cross-compliance, and what they do not ask, you do not find out.
Agree the scope in writing. Get a written quote covering fees, VAT, disbursements and what happens if the transaction turns out to be more complex than assumed. Ask specifically whether a sale of part, unregistered title or an overage clause would change the fee.
Keeping It Moving
The one thing a private sale genuinely lacks is somebody paid to chase, and conveyancing is where that bites hardest. Two firms left to correspond at their own pace will take considerably longer than two firms being politely pursued.
Practical habits that shorten a transaction:
- Send both solicitors the agreed heads of terms at the outset, so nobody spends a fortnight establishing what was already settled.
- Gather your documents before you have a buyer, not after the enquiries arrive.
- Ask for a weekly update, and ask specifically what is outstanding and who holds it.
- Answer enquiries promptly and completely. A half-answer generates another round of letters.
Our guide to the private land sale process sets out the full sequence and the realistic timetable.
Conclusion
Conveyancing is the part of a private land sale you should not touch yourself and should not buy cheaply. It is the mechanism by which ownership actually changes, and the place where farmland's particular problems — access, tenure, reservations, overage — either get found or get inherited by the buyer.
Instruct your own solicitor, choose one who does rural work regularly, agree the scope in writing, and then keep both sides moving. The commission you saved by selling privately will more than cover a properly done job, and a properly done job is what makes the sale worth having.
Disclaimer: AgLand.co.uk is a UK agricultural land and rural property matching service, where buyers register what they are looking for and owners advertise directly to the buyers who match, and a rural resource hub. All fee figures are indicative and current as of August 2026. Nothing in this text is intended as legal advice. You should take advice from a qualified solicitor or licensed conveyancer on your own transaction.