Conveyancing when you sell a home in Ireland

Selling a home in Ireland has a legal half that most sellers never see until it slows them down. Once you accept an offer, the sale is “agreed”, but nothing is binding. Either side can still walk away, and the buyer’s booking deposit is refundable, until both of you have signed the contract. Everything between that handshake and handing over the keys is conveyancing, and it’s where most of the waiting happens.

How long it takes varies a lot. A government-appointed expert group looked at it in 2024 and found the time from offer accepted to closing ran anywhere from about 9.5 to 20 weeks. It set a target of eight. The Law Society has said some transactions take six months or more. Almost all of the difference comes down to how ready the seller’s paperwork is when the sale is agreed.

Get a solicitor before you go on the market

The most useful thing you can do is instruct a solicitor at the start, not after you’ve accepted an offer. Three reasons:

• Your title deeds are probably with your lender. If you have a mortgage, the bank holds them, and your solicitor needs them before a contract can be drawn up. Since 24 March 2026, under the Central Bank’s revised Consumer Protection Code, lenders have to release title deeds to your solicitor within 10 working days of a valid request. That’s better than it was, but it’s still two weeks you don’t want to spend after sale agreed.
• Problems take time to fix. An extension without a compliance opinion, a boundary that doesn’t match the map, or a missing document from an apartment management company can each take weeks or months to sort out. Found early, they cost you time. Found by the buyer’s solicitor, they can cost you the sale.
• You can only exchange contracts once a contract exists. A solicitor who has your file ready can issue contracts within days of sale agreed, while the buyer is keen.

What happens, step by step

1. You instruct your solicitor and they request your title deeds and check what you own: the boundaries, rights of way, and any burdens or charges on the title.
2. Your solicitor drafts the contract. Every residential sale uses the Law Society’s standard General Conditions of Sale, currently the 2023 edition (revised in April 2024), with special conditions added for your property.
3. Contracts go out to the buyer’s solicitor with copies of your title documents.
4. The buyer’s side checks everything. Their solicitor goes through your title, planning history and searches and raises pre-contract queries. In parallel, the buyer gets a survey done and has their mortgage approval confirmed with the property and valuation.
5. The buyer signs and pays the deposit, normally 10% of the price including the booking deposit already paid.
6. You sign, and contracts are exchanged. This is the point of no return for both sides. Under the 2023 conditions, contracts can now be signed and exchanged electronically.
7. Requisitions on title. After exchange, the buyer’s solicitor sends formal questions about the property on the Law Society’s standard form, last updated in March 2025. Your answers have to be true and complete. Your solicitor prepares the deed of transfer and gets the figure to clear your mortgage.
8. Closing. On the closing date, commonly three to four weeks after exchange, the buyer’s money arrives, your mortgage is paid off from the proceeds, the signed deed is handed over, and you hand over the keys.
9. Registration. The buyer’s solicitor registers the new owner with Tailte Éireann, which now runs the Land Registry and the Registry of Deeds. You don’t need to do anything, but your solicitor will have given an undertaking to have your mortgage discharge registered.

The paperwork you’ll be asked for

Title. Most Dublin homes have registered title, meaning they’re on a Land Registry folio with a map. Registration has been compulsory for sales in Dublin since 1 June 2011, so if your title is still unregistered (recorded only in the Registry of Deeds), the sale triggers first registration and your solicitor will need your old deeds.

Planning and building regulations. This is the most common source of trouble. For any extension, attic conversion, garage conversion or significant alteration, the buyer’s solicitor will want an architect’s or engineer’s opinion that it complies with planning permission and building regulations, or was exempt from needing permission. Points to know:

• New exempted development regulations took effect on 27 July 2026, raising the size of rear extension that can be built without planning permission from 40 m² to 45 m², subject to conditions. If your extension was built before then, ask your architect which rules apply to it.
• Converting an attic inside the roof is often exempt, but dormer windows and other changes to the outside usually need permission. Whether an attic room can be described as a bedroom also depends on building regulations, not just planning.
• Work done since 1 March 2014 also falls under the Building Control (Amendment) Regulations, with commencement notices and certificates for larger jobs.
• If something wasn’t done properly, the options are a Section 5 declaration from the council confirming it was exempt, or retention permission. Both take months.

BER certificate. You need a valid Building Energy Rating before you can advertise the house at all, and it has to appear in every ad. Certificates last 10 years.

Local Property Tax. LPT has to be paid up to and including the year of the sale. In Dublin, if you sell for €500,000 or less, or the price isn’t more than 25% above the top of the valuation band you declared, clearance is automatic. Otherwise your solicitor applies to Revenue for specific clearance, which usually takes about 12 working days.

Family home declarations. If the home is a family home, a spouse or civil partner who isn’t on the title still has to consent in writing before the sale. Without that, the sale can be void under the Family Home Protection Act 1976. Expect to sign a statutory declaration about your family circumstances, and to be asked for a marriage or civil partnership certificate.

Apartments. The buyer’s solicitor will want documents from the owners’ management company: the service charge position, sinking fund details and a letter confirming your charges are paid. The Multi-Unit Developments Act 2011 requires a sinking fund of €200 per unit a year unless the members agree otherwise. Management agents can be slow, so ask early.

Things you no longer need. The old Non-Principal Private Residence charge (NPPR) on second homes is gone. Since 1 April 2025 you don’t need a certificate of discharge for it.

Inherited homes. If you’re selling as an executor, you can market the house and agree a sale, but it can’t close until the grant of probate (or letters of administration) has issued. At the end of September 2026, the Dublin Probate Office was working on solicitor applications lodged at the end of June, about 13 weeks behind. Applications made through the online portal were being dealt with in roughly three to four weeks if no queries arose. Starting probate before you go to market can save months.

What holds sales up

The Law Society has named six areas that cause most delays: title deeds, planning, roads and services certificates, statutory declarations, the Land Registry, and property taxes. A few of these are outside anyone’s control:

• Roads and services certificates, which confirm the council has taken over the estate’s roads and services, take anything from 4 to 10 weeks depending on the council.
• Statutory declarations still have to be signed in person, with a wet signature, in front of a solicitor or commissioner for oaths. Plans to replace them with simpler “statements of truth” have been recommended but are still waiting on legislation.
• Land Registry delays. In a 2025 Law Society survey, 69% of solicitors said they always or regularly run into registration delays.

The rest is mostly paperwork that could have been ready. An Irish Times article in September 2025 put it at nearly one sale in seven falling through, mostly because planning or title problems surfaced too late. A 2023 survey of IPAV auctioneers was blunter still: 84% of them had seen a sale collapse because of conveyancing delays.

What it costs

Seller’s solicitor fees in Dublin are now mostly fixed fees, typically in the range of €1,200 to €2,500 plus VAT at 23%, with outlays on top: search fees, Land Registry fees (€40 to discharge each mortgage), commissioner fees for declarations, and sometimes a charge from your bank for releasing the deeds. Apartments usually cost a little more because of the management company paperwork. Get two or three quotes and ask exactly what’s included.

The buyer pays stamp duty: 1% on homes up to €1 million, 2% on the part between €1 million and €1.5 million, and 6% above €1.5 million. They also pay the registration fees. As the seller, the main tax to think about is Capital Gains Tax at 33%, which doesn’t apply to your main home but can apply to a second property or one you haven’t lived in for the whole time you’ve owned it.

What’s changing

The system is slowly modernising. Contracts can already be signed electronically, and since 28 July 2026 copies of title documents ordered from Tailte Éireann arrive digitally. The Government has committed to a national electronic conveyancing system by 2027, which the Law Society says could bring the process down to four to six weeks. Until that arrives, the best way to shorten your own sale is the old one: get your solicitor in early and have the paperwork ready before the first viewing.