Conveyancing quotes cluster fairly tightly, so price is a poor way to distinguish between firms. What actually varies is responsiveness, and whether anyone will tell you plainly what is holding your transaction up.
Five Questions
1. Who will I actually be speaking to? The single most useful question. In a high-volume operation you may deal with a different person each time and communicate largely through a portal, which is fine for a straightforward new build and poor for anything else. 2. What does the quote include, and what are the outlays? Fees and outlays are different things — outlays are sums paid out on your behalf, such as searches, Tailte Éireann registration fees and mapping where required. A quote covering only professional fees is not comparable to one covering both. Both should be set out in writing at the outset. 3. How will you tell me what is outstanding? Not how often you will be updated, but whether you can find out, at any point, what is being waited on and from whom. 4. What experience do you have with this kind of property? A registered-title house in an estate is one thing; unregistered rural title with a shared lane and a septic tank, or a sale out of an estate, is another. 5. Will you tell me not to proceed if there is a real problem?
What Local Actually Buys You
You do not legally need a solicitor in the same county, and the law is identical everywhere. What a local firm genuinely offers is more specific than “local knowledge” as a slogan. Familiarity with the title patterns in the area — which estates have which quirks, where unregistered title is common, how the folios in a particular parish tend to be mapped. Familiarity with the local authority and its planning records. And, more than people expect, familiarity with the solicitors on the other side, because conveyancing runs on relationships between firms and a call that gets returned the same day moves a file faster than three emails that do not. On rural property that local familiarity compounds: access arrangements, wells, septic tanks and boundary conventions are things a firm either sees weekly or rarely. None of that outweighs the five questions above — a responsive firm two counties away beats an unresponsive one on your street — but where both are equal, local is genuinely worth something.
One thing to be wary of: a quote materially below everything else. Conveyancing costs what it costs to do properly, and the way to do it for less is to spend less time on it.
Happy to answer all five before you instruct anybody: 01 5827148.
Richard O’Shea — Solicitor & TEP
Solicitor at Mary Molloy Solicitors, established 1981, with an office at 2 Rose Inn Street in Kilkenny city centre and a second office in Dublin. The firm handles residential and rural conveyancing across Kilkenny and the south-east — buying, selling, sites and farmland, family transfers, remortgages and transfers of equity. Richard is a TEP of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, which matters more in conveyancing than people expect: a great many property transactions in Kilkenny arise out of an estate, a family transfer or a succession plan, and those need both sides handled together. Nothing here is tax advice — stamp duty and any gift or inheritance tax questions belong with your accountant and Revenue. 01 5827148 · richardoshea@marymolloysolicitors.com · LinkedIn
General information, not legal advice. This website contains general information about conveyancing and property law in Ireland. It is not legal advice and does not create a solicitor—client relationship. Every transaction turns on its own facts — the title, the planning position, the lender’s requirements and the contract — and advice on yours requires a consultation.
Nothing here is tax advice. Stamp duty, Local Property Tax, capital gains on a sale, and any gift or inheritance tax arising on a family transfer are matters for your accountant or tax adviser and for Revenue’s own guidance. This firm does not advise on tax and states no rate, threshold, relief or condition anywhere on this site. Where a scheme such as Help to Buy or the First Home Scheme is mentioned, the eligibility rules and limits are set by Revenue and the scheme administrators and change from time to time — confirm the current position directly with them.
No valuation, survey or financial advice. This firm does not value property, does not advise on price, and is not a surveyor, engineer or mortgage adviser. A solicitor’s investigation of title is not a structural survey and is not a substitute for one, and no legal work will tell you whether a property is sound or whether the price is right.
Never both sides of the same transaction. The firm acts for buyers and, in separate transactions, for sellers — but not for both parties to the same sale. Conflicts are checked before any substantive discussion, which is why the first contact should identify the property and every party involved.
No timeline is promised. Nothing on this site states or implies that a transaction will close by any particular date. Closing depends on matters outside any solicitor’s control, including the other side, the lender, the chain, and third parties such as local authorities and Tailte Éireann.
Fees. Fees and outlays are agreed in writing with the client at the outset, in accordance with the Legal Services Regulation Act. In contentious business, a solicitor may not calculate fees or other charges as a percentage or proportion of any award or settlement.