Conveyancing Process Explained — What Your Lawyer Does

What Is Conveyancing?

Between the day you exercise your Option to Purchase (OTP) and the day you collect your keys, an 8-10 week window opens up where you barely touch a pen — but a lawyer is working through a checklist that decides whether your purchase closes cleanly or drags into a dispute. Conveyancing is the legal process of transferring registered title in a property from seller to buyer: verifying the seller's ownership, clearing any existing mortgage or caveat, calculating and paying stamp duty, and lodging the new ownership with the Singapore Land Authority's title register so it is legally yours.

For a resale condo or HDB flat this runs on a fixed sequence: OTP exercise, requisitions and title search, CPF/bank liaison, stamping, completion, and lodgement. For a new launch bought under a Sale and Purchase Agreement (S&P), the same legal work happens but is spread across the progressive payment schedule instead of a single completion date — your lawyer certifies each construction milestone before the developer draws down the next tranche.

Every Singapore property transaction (as of 2026-07) needs a lawyer at completion — banks and the CPF Board will not release financing without one certifying the transfer. The real choice you make is whose lawyer: a firm on your bank's conveyancing panel (subsidised) or one you engage independently (full fee, on record for you alone). Section 7 works through that trade-off.

Your Lawyer's Role

Your conveyancing lawyer's job splits into six workstreams, each with its own deadline inside the completion timeline.

Contract review. Reads the OTP or S&P before you sign anything binding, flags unusual clauses (subject-to-sale conditions, non-standard completion dates), and confirms the option period and exercise deadline.

Legal requisitions. Sends a standard set of requisitions to public agencies — URA for planning and enforcement notices, HDB's requisition and estate records for ex-HDB estates or ECs — to surface any outstanding notices or unauthorised works before you're locked in.

Title search. Pulls the title to confirm the seller is the registered owner, checks for an existing mortgage that needs to be discharged, and spots any caveat lodged by a third party (Section 3 covers this in full).

CPF and loan liaison. Submits your CPF withdrawal application if you're using CPF OA funds, and coordinates with your bank's loan department so the mortgage disbursement lands on completion day — not before, not after. Check your loan quantum against your repayment capacity with the mortgage calculator before this stage starts.

Stamping. Calculates and pays Buyer's Stamp Duty (BSD) and Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty (ABSD, if applicable) within 14 days of the OTP being exercised.

Completion account and lodgement. Prepares the completion statement (purchase price less deposit, plus or less apportioned property tax and maintenance), disburses funds to the seller's lawyer on completion day, and lodges the transfer instrument to register you as the new owner.

Step-by-Step Process

Here is the sequence a standard resale purchase follows from OTP to keys.

1. Exercise the OTP (Day 0). You pay the exercise fee — the remaining 4%, bringing your total deposit to 5% — and sign the Sale and Purchase Agreement. Your lawyer's clock starts here.
2. Engage your lawyer and send requisitions (Day 1-3). Your lawyer opens the file, sends legal requisitions to URA/HDB and other agencies, and requests the title search.
3. Stamp the document (within 14 days of exercise, as of 2026-07). BSD — and ABSD if you own another residential property — is calculated and paid via IRAS e-Stamping for property transactions. Missing this window triggers late-stamping penalties.
4. CPF and bank liaison (Week 2-6). Your lawyer submits your CPF withdrawal application (if using CPF OA) and locks in the loan disbursement date with your bank.
5. Requisition replies and due diligence close out (Week 4-7). Outstanding queries — an existing mortgage discharge, an unauthorised renovation flagged in a requisition reply — get resolved before completion is fixed.
6. Completion (Week 8-10 from OTP exercise, per the S&P). Your lawyer prepares the completion account, your bank disburses the loan, CPF releases OA funds, and the balance purchase price transfers to the seller's lawyer, all on the same day.
7. Lodgement (within days of completion). Your lawyer lodges the transfer instrument — this step is what legally makes you the registered owner, not the day you collect keys.

New-launch purchases under an S&P swap steps 4-6 for a progressive payment schedule tied to construction milestones (foundation, framework, roof, and so on), with your lawyer certifying each drawdown to the developer instead of a single completion date.

Title Search & Due Diligence

The title search is the single check that protects you from buying a property with someone else's claim attached to it. Your lawyer pulls the registered title and checks four things.

Ownership. The seller named on the title matches the seller named on your OTP — not a family member, not an estate still in probate.

Existing mortgage. Most resale properties still carry an outstanding home loan. The title search confirms which bank holds the charge so your lawyer can arrange for it to be discharged out of your completion proceeds — you are not buying a property with someone else's mortgage still attached to it.

Caveats. A caveat is a legal notice lodged against the title — by an estranged co-owner, a creditor, or a prior purchaser whose deal fell through without formal withdrawal. An unresolved caveat can block your own lodgement outright.

Encumbrances and restrictions. Easements, tenancy notices, or a resale restriction tied to an ex-HDB flat's holding period that survive the sale.

Typical Costs Breakdown

Legal fees for a straightforward resale purchase run S$2,500-3,500 (as of 2026-07), covering the conveyancing work itself — this fee is separate from stamp duty, which is a tax, not a charge from your lawyer. On top of the headline fee, your law firm itemises disbursements: title search fees, requisition fees paid to public agencies, registration fees at completion, and CPF administrative charges if you're using CPF OA funds. Ask for these itemised upfront rather than accepting a single bundled quote — it is the only way to compare two firms on an apples-to-apples basis.

Take a Singapore Citizen buying a S$1.2M resale condo as her first property, financed with a bank loan and no CPF withdrawal. Her legal fee is quoted at S$3,000. BSD on S$1.2M is calculated across the bands: 1% on the first S$180,000, 2% on the next S$180,000, 3% on the next S$640,000, and 4% on the remaining S$200,000 up to S$1.2M — S$32,600 total. As an SC buying her first property, ABSD is S$0.

Run your own numbers — including valuation fees and agent commission if you're selling at the same time — through the total upfront cost calculator, and confirm the exact BSD/ABSD for your profile with the stamp duty calculator.

Timeline from OTP to Completion

A resale completion date is fixed in the OTP/S&P, running 8 to 10 weeks after you exercise — though buyer and seller can agree to a longer or shorter date in the contract itself. The OTP mechanics behind this timeline explain why that window opens the way it does.

Two dates matter more than the rest. The 14-day stamping deadline is a hard cutoff — miss it and penalties apply regardless of how the rest of the file is progressing. And the CPF Board's property withdrawal process needs lead time before completion, since the application is processed rather than funds released instantly on request; leaving it to the final week is the most common self-inflicted delay in the entire file.

New-launch purchases replace this fixed timeline with a progressive schedule stretching across the construction period, often several years from S&P to Temporary Occupation Permit, with your lawyer certifying each drawdown milestone rather than working toward one completion date.

Common Issues & Delays

Most conveyancing delays trace back to one of a handful of recurring issues — none of them exotic, all of them avoidable with early action.

• Existing mortgage discharge lags. The seller's bank needs lead time to prepare a discharge of the existing mortgage before completion; a seller who only requests this in the final week pushes completion back.
• CPF withdrawal submitted late. CPF Board processing isn't instant. Submit as soon as your OTP is exercised, not once completion is a week away.
• Unauthorised renovations surface in requisition replies. A converted balcony or a knocked-through wall without approval can require the seller to regularise it before completion — a step the contract didn't budget time for.
• A caveat appears between OTP and completion. Rare, but a re-check of title shortly before completion exists specifically to catch this before your money moves.
• Loan approval doesn't match the completion date. Your bank's Letter of Offer has its own validity window — if completion slips past it, the loan needs re-approval, which resets the clock again.

Digital conveyancing infrastructure rolled out for the Singapore legal sector (as of 2026-07) is narrowing some of these gaps — see the digital conveyancing portal guide for how e-lodgement is changing turnaround times.

Choosing the Right Lawyer

Your real decision isn't which law firm's website looks best — it's whether to use your bank's conveyancing panel or engage your own lawyer independently.

A panel lawyer is the cheaper default for most straightforward resale purchases, and it's what your bank will suggest first. The trade-off is that the panel lawyer also acts for your bank — in practice this causes little friction on a plain transaction, but if your purchase involves a trust structure, a decoupling exercise, or a dispute with the seller, an independent lawyer who answers only to you is worth the extra fee.

Whichever route you choose, verify the solicitor's firm on the Ministry of Law's public legal register, and confirm in writing who is responsible for each of the six workstreams in Section 2 before you sign the engagement letter.

For the cost side of the equation across your full purchase, not just legal fees, the complete condo purchase cost breakdown lines up every item alongside stamp duty and financing.