About HomeBuyingCosts

What this site is for

Use the home buying cost calculator to estimate the total upfront cash you need to complete a purchase: stamp duty, conveyancing fees, survey, mortgage and lender fees on top of your deposit. From there, the stamp duty calculator and total cost to buy pages answer specific planning questions, and the monthly ownership cost tool shows what a home costs to run once you have moved in.

These tools answer questions like "how much cash do I need to buy a £300,000 home?" or "how much stamp duty will I pay as a first-time buyer?". See the full list of tools and cost pages. For a formal figure before exchange or completion, always confirm with your conveyancer and the official HMRC, Revenue Scotland or Welsh Revenue Authority calculators.

What we cover

• Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) — England and Northern Ireland bands, first-time buyer relief, the higher rate for additional dwellings and the non-UK resident surcharge, with worked examples at common prices.
• LBTT and LTT — Scotland's Land and Buildings Transaction Tax and Wales's Land Transaction Tax, including first-time buyer relief, the Additional Dwelling Supplement and higher residential rates.
• Conveyancing and legal fees — typical solicitor and licensed conveyancer fee ranges, what a quote includes, and disbursements such as searches, Land Registry and bank transfer fees.
• Mortgage and product fees — arrangement, booking and valuation fees, and how lender charges add to the cash needed at completion.
• Deposit and surveys — how much deposit you need at different loan-to-value levels, and the cost of Level 1, 2 and 3 surveys or a homebuyer report.
• Total cash to completion and moving costs — bringing tax, fees, deposit, survey and removal costs together into one all-in figure for offer-stage budgeting.
• City and region guides — typical buying costs and stamp duty in major UK locations including London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Bristol and Cardiff.

Editorial approach

Every calculator and guide is written in plain British English and reviewed against current HMRC and GOV.UK guidance, Revenue Scotland LBTT pages and Welsh Revenue Authority LTT guidance for the active tax year. We prioritise practical accuracy, transparent assumptions and pages that genuinely help a buyer plan, not pages that restate definitions without helping anyone act.

We show our workings. Where a figure is an estimate or an assumption is made, it is stated on the page and explained in full on the methodology page. Our editorial standards cover how we write, review and update content, and the official sources we check against.

The site is free to use and funded by advertising. That never affects the figures our calculators produce or the guidance we give. This site provides general information and estimates, not legal, tax or financial advice.

How the site is maintained

• Stamp duty rates and thresholds are updated when HMRC, Revenue Scotland or the Welsh Revenue Authority confirm changes to SDLT, LBTT or LTT.
• Calculators and guides are reviewed at each fiscal event, including the Budget, where changes affect stamp duty, first-time buyer relief or buying costs.
• Pages are updated when readers report confusing assumptions, unclear wording or outdated figures.
• We do not publish thin pages without practical value for a UK home-buying audience.

Editorial ownership and contact

James Whitfield is the editorial owner of HomeBuyingCosts. He is a UK personal finance writer with a focus on property purchase costs, stamp duty and conveyancing, and he researches SDLT, LBTT, LTT and full completion costs against official UK government and devolved-authority publications. James holds a PhD in engineering mathematics and builds these tools to make the numbers genuinely clear and usable, with a strong focus on figures checked against official HMRC and GOV.UK guidance and a clean, honest user experience. He is not a regulated tax adviser, so for decisions about your own situation, consult a qualified professional.

His work focuses on turning complex stamp duty rules and scattered buying costs into a single, plain-English cash-to-completion picture that is a clear starting point for budgeting, rather than a substitute for advice from a conveyancer or a qualified financial adviser. Calculators and guides are reviewed against current guidance before publication and corrected promptly when readers flag an error.

For corrections, data-quality feedback or editorial queries, use the contact page or email hello@homebuyingcosts.co.uk. Last reviewed: July 2026.