Two people can do the legal work on your home purchase: a licensed conveyancer, or a solicitor. Which you are allowed to use is decided by your state. Which you should use is decided by your purchase.
Most comparisons are written by a firm in one state, describing that state's rules as though they applied everywhere. They do not. The licence that lets a conveyancer act for you in Melbourne does not exist in Brisbane. The licence in Perth is not called a conveyancer's licence at all, and authorises a narrower job. In the Northern Territory an agent needs a separate endorsement before they can draw up a mortgage.
The short answer
Six of the eight states and territories license non-lawyers to do conveyancing work: New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory. Queensland and the ACT do not license conveyancers at all, so a solicitor is the only person who can be paid to do the work there.
Where you do have a choice, the honest default for a standard purchase of an established house or unit, in your own name, is a licensed conveyancer. The moment your purchase involves a trust, a company, a deceased estate or a dispute, you want a solicitor, and the reason is not service quality. It is that the conveyancer's licence, by law, does not reach that far.
Cost is the usual tiebreaker, and the least useful one. It is covered in our guide to conveyancing and what it costs. This guide answers the other question: who is allowed to act for you, and who you actually need.
Who is legally allowed to act for you, state by state
Every jurisdiction answers this with its own Act and its own regulator.
| Where you are buying | Who may be paid to do the work | The instrument | Regulator |
|---|---|---|---|
| NSW | Licensed conveyancer or solicitor | Conveyancers Licensing Act 2003 | NSW Fair Trading |
| VIC | Licensed conveyancer or solicitor | Conveyancers Act 2006 | Consumer Affairs Victoria |
| QLD | Solicitor only | Legal Profession Act 2007 | Queensland Law Society |
| WA | Licensed settlement agent or solicitor | Settlement Agents Act 1981 | Consumer Protection WA |
| SA | Registered conveyancer or solicitor | Conveyancers Act 1994 | Consumer and Business Services |
| TAS | Licensed conveyancer or solicitor | Conveyancing Act 2004 | Consumer, Building and Occupational Services |
| ACT | Solicitor only | Legal Profession Act 2006 | ACT Law Society |
| NT | Licensed conveyancing agent or solicitor | Agents Licensing Act 1979 | Agents Licensing Board |
The detail underneath each row is what decides your choice, including the part the licence does not cover.
New South Wales
Section 6 of the Conveyancers Licensing Act 2003 makes it an offence to conduct a conveyancing business for fee or reward without a licence, and section 7 does the interesting thing: a licensee is not guilty of an offence under the legal profession legislation for conveyancing work done under the licence. The licence is a carve-out from work otherwise reserved to lawyers, and section 7 adds that it does not permit a licensee to do anything "calculated to imply that the licensee is qualified to act as a solicitor". Section 4 then draws the boundary explicitly, and it is the clearest such list in the country.
Victoria
Section 8 of the Conveyancers Act 2006 makes unlicensed conveyancing punishable by up to 2 years imprisonment or 240 penalty units for an individual. It also does something genuinely protective: if someone acts for you without a licence they cannot recover their fee, and you can sue to get back anything you already paid. Victoria's exclusion list is longer than the New South Wales one, and it is the only state that carves out legal advice about planning consent for the development or use of land.
Queensland
Queensland is solicitor only, and the mechanism matters: it is not a rule against conveyancers, it is the absence of a rule for them. Section 24 of the Legal Profession Act 2007 says a person must not engage in legal practice unless they are an Australian legal practitioner, then exempts legal practice "engaged in under the authority of a law of this jurisdiction". In New South Wales that authorising law is the conveyancers Act. Queensland does not have one. The Property Occupations Act 2014 issues three licences: auctioneer, real estate agent and resident letting agent. Conveyancer is not among them, and the word does not appear in that Act at all.
A Queensland agent may fill in the blanks on a standard contract without that counting as legal practice, but the Act is precise: an agent's work "does not include giving legal advice in relation to a property contract or other document".
Western Australia
Western Australia licenses settlement agents rather than conveyancers, and the difference is not cosmetic. Under the Settlement Agents Act 1981 the licence is to arrange or effect the settlement of a transaction, which the Act defines as completing it "by payment of the balance of purchase price". There are two separate licences, real estate settlement agent and business settlement agent, and a house purchase needs the first. Consumer Protection WA puts the choice plainly: hold a settlement agent licence, or be a certified legal practitioner.
South Australia
South Australia registers conveyancers rather than licensing them, under the Conveyancers Act 1994, and the definition is narrower than it looks. A conveyancer is a person, other than a legal practitioner, whose business involves preparing conveyancing instruments for fee or reward, and a conveyancing instrument means an instrument as defined in the Real Property Act 1886. The registration is anchored to the documents that get registered, not to property advice generally.
Tasmania
Tasmania licenses conveyancers under the Conveyancing Act 2004, with the same instrument-anchored scope as South Australia: a conveyancer is someone who is not a legal practitioner and whose business involves preparing dealings within the meaning of the Land Titles Act 1980. Tasmania also limits interstate conveyancers working there under mutual recognition to the scope they are authorised to do at home.
Australian Capital Territory
Like Queensland, the ACT is solicitor only because it has no licensing pathway for non-lawyers, but its Legal Profession Act 2006 makes the point more directly. Section 16 makes it an offence to engage in legal practice without being an Australian legal practitioner, and carries worked examples of what that means. One is "preparing an instrument relating to property or a legal proceeding". Preparing your transfer is legal practice in the ACT by the Act's own example. The Agents Act 2003, which licenses the territory's property professions, covers business agents, real estate agents and stock and station agents, and does not mention conveyancing anywhere. Section 16 also gives a defence where the work was not done "for fee, gain or reward", which is why doing your own conveyancing is not the offence.
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory licenses conveyancing agents under the Agents Licensing Act 1979, and it is the only jurisdiction where "licensed" is not a single thing. Schedule 1 sets out what an agent may do: search titles and caveats, make government searches, arrange the preparation and execution of contracts of sale, attend settlement, lodge documents, and report progress to you. Section 31A adds a second layer. Before an agent can draw up a lease, a mortgage, an encumbrance, a restrictive covenant or a contract for the sale of a business, the licence must be separately endorsed for that service after approved training, and doing one without the endorsement is its own offence. If your Territory purchase involves any of those five, ask whether the licence carries the endorsement.
Whichever state you are in, the licence or practising certificate is checkable with the regulator. If you would rather skip that step, we will send you two or three we have already checked.
The line the law draws: what a conveyancer's licence does not cover
This is the part that decides most real cases, and almost nobody publishes it. New South Wales and Victoria both spell out, in section 4 of their Acts, the work that is not conveyancing work. A conveyancer's authority stops at that line. Between the two lists:
- Commencing or maintaining legal proceedings. If your purchase turns into a fight, it is not conveyancing work in either state.
- Creating, varying or extinguishing a trust. Buying through a family trust, or setting one up around the purchase.
- Establishing a corporation, or varying its constitution. Buying in a company name carries a company-law layer the licence does not reach.
- Preparing a testamentary instrument. Wills sit with a solicitor, which matters if buying is when you sort out your estate planning.
- Applying for probate or letters of administration. Named in the Victorian Act, and the practical reason a deceased estate purchase goes to a solicitor.
- Giving investment or financial advice. Excluded in both states.
- Legal advice on planning consent for the development or use of land. Victoria only, and the line you meet if you are buying with a renovation or subdivision in mind.
- Mortgages over non-residential property securing more than $7 million. New South Wales only, and unlikely to touch a first home.
The other four reach the same place by a different route. Western Australia's licence is to effect settlement. South Australia's and Tasmania's are to prepare registrable instruments. The Northern Territory's is Schedule 1 plus whatever endorsements the individual holds. None is a licence to advise on trusts, companies, estates or litigation.
One place the line is finer than people assume: how you and your co-buyer hold the title, including an unequal split such as 80/20, is a standard registered dealing and squarely within a conveyancer's work. What crosses the line is wrapping a trust around the purchase.
What a solicitor can do that a conveyancer cannot
Everything above, plus the thing behind all of it: a solicitor can act when the transaction becomes a dispute. A conveyancer can tell you the vendor has failed to complete or that a special condition has not been met. Taking that anywhere is legal proceedings, which the licence excludes. The same goes for the complicated end of contract work: negotiating a substantial variation, drafting a bespoke special condition, or resolving an easement problem the title search has turned up.
Beyond that, be sceptical of the standard comparison table. Claims about who is more responsive, who reviews your contract personally and who is better at electronic settlement vary far more between firms than between the professions. Ask a specific person, not a category. And neither profession is your accountant: both Acts exclude investment and financial advice.
Neither one is the other: why the licence excludes lawyers
A detail that clears up a lot of confusion: in all six jurisdictions that license conveyancers, the statute defines the role to exclude lawyers. New South Wales treats an Australian legal practitioner as a disqualified person for the licence. Victoria says a natural person "other than an Australian legal practitioner" is eligible. South Australia and Tasmania build "other than a legal practitioner" into the definition. Western Australia excepts legal practitioners from the meaning of settlement agent, and the Territory's Act does not apply to them at all.
So one individual cannot hold both hats at once. A firm advertising conveyancing and legal services employs a licensed conveyancer alongside a solicitor, which is often the ideal setup because the escalation path is internal. Ask which of the two will be doing your file, and who takes over if something legal surfaces.
Is your purchase actually simple?
In Queensland and the ACT, skip this section. Everywhere else the decision comes down to the structure of the deal rather than the property, and it splits in two.
Where the law decides for you
These sit outside the statutory definition of conveyancing work, so a conveyancer cannot take them on however simple they look.
- A company or trust is buying. Establishing a corporation and creating or varying a trust are both excluded, and both can change what duty you pay.
- The seller is a deceased estate. Probate and letters of administration are excluded outright in Victoria, and estate work sits outside the licence generally.
- Anything heading to court. Commencing or maintaining legal proceedings is excluded in both states that spell the boundary out.
Where it is a judgement call
A conveyancer may legally act on all of these. They are still where a solicitor's breadth tends to earn its keep.
- The transfer follows a separation or divorce. Consent orders are a different body of law sitting on top of the transfer.
- You are buying off the plan, or buying unregistered land. Sunset clauses and developer risk are contract drafting problems.
- The property is commercial or mixed use, or a business comes with it. Sale-of-business conveyancing is expressly inside the licence, not outside it: New South Wales names it in the definition, Victoria added it by amendment, the Northern Territory covers it by endorsement. What argues for a solicitor is the GST, lease and warranty layer, not a lack of authority.
- It is a retirement village or similar contract. Its own legislation applies, and the exit terms are where the money is.
- There is a boundary, easement or encroachment problem. A conveyancer will find it. Resolving it is a different job.
- The home is heritage listed, or the land may be contaminated. Both bring obligations that outlast settlement.
- You can already smell a dispute. Start with the person who can act in one.
If none of those apply, and you are buying an established home in your own name on a standard contract, a licensed conveyancer is the right choice. In New South Wales a conveyancer can even sign the section 66W certificate that waives your cooling-off period, a step people assume needs a solicitor: s 66W says "solicitor or barrister", but s 66P, the definitions section of the same Division, says solicitor there "includes a licensed conveyancer". Whether you should hand one over is covered in our guides to cooling-off periods and gazumping.
Not sure which side of the line you are on? Tell us your state and what you are buying, and we will match you with a conveyancer or a property solicitor.
Changing your mind mid-purchase
You can change who acts for you at any point. Western Australia writes it down: rule 31 of the Settlement Agents Code of Conduct 2016 says a client "is entitled to change the client's settlement agent or instruct a lawyer to act for the client at any time without giving a licensee a reason", and obliges the agent to facilitate that change. Elsewhere it follows from the retainer being yours to end. It costs money, because you pay for work already done, and it costs time, usually the bigger problem, because a new firm has to read the contract and get access to the electronic workspace the settlement runs through.
The cleaner move is to escalate rather than switch, and again Western Australia puts a duty behind it: rule 30 requires a licensee to recommend the client seek a lawyer's advice where that is "necessary or prudent", and forbids them from discouraging or impeding you from getting legal advice. A conveyancer who hits something outside their licence should say so and refer you on, usually keeping the transfer while the solicitor takes the piece that needs them.
What actually protects you, either way
Professional indemnity insurance is not the tiebreaker some comparisons make it, because every conveyancer regime requires it. What differs is the consequence of a lapse. Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania suspend the licence or registration automatically for any period the cover is not in force. New South Wales and the Northern Territory frame it as a condition of holding the licence instead, and Western Australia runs it through a master policy arranged by the Commissioner, with a floor in the Act of $250 000 for each claim. Victoria goes furthest on your side of it: section 42 requires a licensee to disclose the type and level of their cover before or at the time they are retained, with a penalty for not doing it.
Trust money is separately regulated in every regime. Your deposit is usually held by the seller's agent rather than your own conveyancer, but settlement funds passing through your representative sit in a trust account, not a business account. Each jurisdiction also has a complaints path to the regulator in the table above, which is why you put your engagement in writing.
What to ask before you engage anyone
- What is your licence or practising certificate number? Check it against the regulator's register.
- In the NT, what is the licence endorsed for? The section 31A endorsements are specific, and a missing one surfaces late.
- Who personally reviews my contract? Not which firm. Which person.
- What happens if something outside your licence turns up? You want a named referral path.
- What is your professional indemnity cover? A Victorian licensee has to tell you. Everyone else should be willing to.
- Get the engagement and the fee in writing before you appoint anyone. In Western Australia that is not optional: rule 23 requires a written costs disclosure before you appoint the agent, and rule 24 stops them charging above the disclosed amount except in defined circumstances.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a conveyancer and a solicitor?
A conveyancer holds a licence limited by statute to conveyancing work, and every jurisdiction that issues one defines it to exclude lawyers, so these are separate roles rather than two grades of the same one. A solicitor's practising certificate has no such subject-matter limit. In New South Wales and Victoria the boundary is written out in section 4: trusts, companies, testamentary instruments, probate and legal proceedings all sit outside conveyancing work. Where a purchase stays inside that boundary either can act; where it crosses, only a solicitor can. Relative cost is a separate question, covered in our conveyancing costs guide.
Is a conveyancer as good as a solicitor?
For a standard residential purchase in the six jurisdictions that license them, yes, and specialisation cuts in their favour because it is the only work they do. The difference is not skill, it is authority: work outside the statutory definition of the licence is not theirs to do at any level of competence.
Can a conveyancer handle an auction purchase?
Yes, in the states that license conveyancers. Auction changes the timing, not who may act: there is no cooling-off period at auction anywhere in Australia, so the contract review and your building and pest inspection have to happen before you raise your hand.
Do I need a solicitor to buy off the plan?
You are not legally required to in the six conveyancer jurisdictions, but off the plan is the most common reason to choose one anyway. The contract is long, sunset clause terms differ between developers, and the risks are contract drafting risks rather than transfer risks. If you are using a conveyancer, ask how many off-the-plan purchases they handled last year.
Can I switch from a conveyancer to a solicitor mid-purchase?
Yes. You are the client and the retainer is yours to end. You pay for work already done, and the real cost is the days a new firm needs to get up to speed. Where the trigger is that something legally complex has surfaced, escalating inside the same firm, or to a solicitor your conveyancer works with, usually protects the settlement date where a cold switch may not.
Who handles a dispute at settlement?
Your conveyancer manages the mechanics: shortfalls, adjustments, a failure to complete on the day, and the notices that go with them. If it escalates to enforcing the contract, that is legal proceedings, which both Acts exclude from conveyancing work outright. At that point you need a solicitor, and the handover is easier if you asked about the referral path before engaging anyone. Our guide to settlement day covers the mechanics.
Do I have to use a solicitor in Queensland or the ACT?
Yes, if you are paying someone. Neither licenses conveyancers, so doing the work for a fee falls under the general prohibition on engaging in legal practice without being an Australian legal practitioner. Firms in both places advertise conveyancing services, and they are law practices doing so. Ask for the practising certificate rather than a licence number.
Sources and limits. Licensing rules come from the Conveyancers Licensing Act 2003 (NSW), the Conveyancers Act 2006 (Vic), the Legal Profession Act 2007 and Property Occupations Act 2014 (Qld), the Settlement Agents Act 1981 and Settlement Agents Code of Conduct 2016 (WA), the Conveyancers Act 1994 (SA), the Conveyancing Act 2004 (Tas), the Legal Profession Act 2006 and Agents Act 2003 (ACT), and the Agents Licensing Act 1979 (NT), plus Consumer Protection WA. The certificate provisions are sections 66P and 66W of the Conveyancing Act 1919 (NSW). Penalty units are set separately and differ between jurisdictions. Several of these Acts were amended within the last year, so confirm anything decisive with your state regulator. This is general information, not legal advice.
