Conveyancing

Conveyancing is the legal machinery that moves title from one name to another and registers a bank's charge against it. It is not the deal — the deal was struck when an Option to Purchase was exercised, or a will took effect, or a court granted probate. Conveyancing is what makes that deal real against the world: it lodges the transfer with the Singapore Land Authority, discharges the seller's old mortgage, registers the buyer's new one, moves stamp duty from a liability into a paid receipt, and hands the keys over only once all of that has cleared. It fires twice in most people's lives, and the two firings are different animals. The first is a transfer — a sale, a purchase, an inheritance, a divorce transfer — where title changes hands. The second is a charge — a mortgage, a refinancing, an equity term loan — where title stays put but a bank's claim against it is registered, varied or discharged. This page covers both, because most readers will hit at least one of each, often on the same property, months apart.

The mechanics: what a conveyance actually does

Singapore runs a Torrens land title system: the register itself is the proof of ownership, not a chain of old deeds. Since 18 January 2006, documents for private property have been lodged electronically with SLA; HDB property documents are still lodged manually at SLA's counter. Either way, each document is given a priority number on lodgment and the deed is registered within a few days — that priority number is what a caveat or a competing claim has to beat, which is why a lawyer lodges a caveat the moment a deal is struck rather than waiting for completion.

• The buyer's lawyer — drafts and reviews the contract, runs title searches, holds the completion funds, lodges the transfer
• The seller's lawyer — clears any existing mortgage, produces the discharge, hands over vacant possession documents
• The bank's lawyer — acts for the lender on the mortgage side, sometimes the same firm as the buyer's lawyer, sometimes a separate appointment with its own bill
• HDB (for a flat) or SLA (for private property) — registers the transfer and any mortgage against the title
• CPF Board — receives the refund of principal plus accrued interest when a CPF-funded property is sold, and disburses reimbursement once its own charge is lodged

Eligibility: who needs a lawyer, and who can act for someone who can't

Every buyer needs a conveyance done, but not every buyer needs the same lawyer. An HDB resale buyer can use HDB's own in-house legal service if taking an HDB loan, or engage a private lawyer either way — the private route costs more but is the only option for a bank loan or a private-property purchase. A buyer who cannot attend in person — overseas, or physically unable to sign — uses an HDB Power of Attorney in HDB's own prescribed format, prepared by a solicitor and signed before a lawyer in Singapore or a Consular Officer abroad; the attorney appointed cannot also be a tenant of the flat. That is a different instrument from a Lasting Power of Attorney, which exists for loss of mental capacity rather than physical absence: a donee acting under a registered LPA can sell, refinance or manage a property once a doctor has certified the donor's incapacity, submitting the registered LPA plus the donor's NRIC and the medical report to the bank, HDB, CPF Board or SLA as the conveyance requires.

Citizenship: what changes at the same completion table

Every buyer's conveyance runs through the same mechanical steps regardless of citizenship — the difference is what gets collected before the transfer is allowed to register. A Singapore Citizen pays no Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty on a first home, 20% on a second, 30% on a third or later. A Permanent Resident pays 5% on a first home, 30% on a second, 35% on a third. A foreigner pays 60% flat, an entity or trust 65%. Nationals of the United States, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Iceland are charged ABSD as if they were Singapore Citizens under their countries' free trade agreements with Singapore — a stamp-duty concession only. It does not touch the Residential Property Act: an FTA national buying landed housing still needs the same Land Dealings Approval Unit approval as any other foreigner, applied for and cleared before the conveyance can complete, not folded into it.

The tax a conveyance actually collects

Buyer's Stamp Duty is charged on every residential purchase regardless of citizenship, on a rising scale: 1% on the first $180,000, 2% on the next $180,000, 3% on the next $640,000, 4% on the next $500,000, 5% on the next $1,500,000, and 6% above $3,000,000. On a $1,000,000 purchase that is $1,800 + $3,600 + $19,200 — $24,600 in total, arithmetic on the published bands, not a separate figure. BSD and ABSD are both due within 14 days of the option being exercised or the sale agreement signed, computed on the higher of price or market value and rounded down to the nearest dollar. Most buyers pay both in cash to meet that 14-day clock, then apply for CPF reimbursement afterward, because CPF cannot disburse before its own charge on the property is registered — the conveyance has to be far enough along before CPF money can move at all.

• 1% on the first $180,000
• 2% on the next $180,000
• 3% on the next $640,000
• 4% on the next $500,000
• 5% on the next $1,500,000
• 6% on the remainder above $3,000,000

If this conveyance is a sale rather than a purchase, and it happens inside four years of buying, Seller's Stamp Duty applies: 16% in year one, 12% in year two, 8% in year three, 4% in year four, nil after — on residential property bought on or after 4 July 2025, computed the same way as BSD and due within the same 14 days. A married couple with at least one Singapore Citizen who bought a second home to replace a first can get their ABSD refunded, but only if the first home is sold within six months of the replacement's purchase, or of TOP or CSC for an uncompleted one — a separate clock from the 14-day duty deadline, and one IRAS has stated plainly will not be extended.

A conveyance can also move shares rather than the property itself — buying into or out of a property-holding entity, one where at least half its tangible assets are Singapore residential property and the buyer takes or strengthens a 50%-or-more equity stake. That triggers Additional Conveyance Duty instead of ABSD: up to 71% for the buyer's side, up to 16% for the seller's side on equity disposed of within four years. It is the same underlying economic event as buying a house, taxed through a different door because the asset moving is a share certificate, not a title deed.

The mortgage side: a second, smaller conveyance riding on the first

Almost every purchase conveyance carries a mortgage conveyance inside it, and the two are not always the same job. A bank will commonly appoint its own lawyer for the mortgage side even where the buyer has an independent lawyer for the purchase, with a separate bill typically S$1,800 to S$3,000 on top of the purchase conveyancing fee. What that mortgage-side lawyer registers is bounded by MAS's own limits: 75% loan-to-value on a first housing loan (55% where the loan tenure runs long or age plus tenure exceeds the ceiling), 45% on a second outstanding loan, assessed against a 55% Total Debt Servicing Ratio floored at a 4% interest rate for residential property regardless of the rate actually quoted. An HDB loan for an HDB flat or EC runs instead against a 30% Mortgage Servicing Ratio cap. Mortgage duty itself is small and separate from BSD — 0.4% of the loan amount, capped at S$500 — but it is charged again in full on a refinancing, because a refinancing is legally a discharge of the old charge and registration of a new one, not an amendment.

Renovation waits for completion, and CPF waits for the charge

Renovation, addition-and-alteration and rebuild work are not part of the conveyance and cannot be funded through it — CPF Ordinary Account savings cannot pay for renovation, improvement or repair on a property under any circumstance, with no exceptions listed by CPF Board, whether the money is for a fresh coat of paint or a full re-fit. The conveyance's own timing makes this a real planning constraint rather than a footnote: nothing about the unit can be touched until keys are handed over at legal completion, and for an HDB flat every contractor engaged afterward must come from HDB's own Directory of Renovation Contractors, with prior written approval required for any wall-hacking regardless of scale. Committing to a renovation contract, or to a moving date, ahead of the conveyance's actual completion date is the single most common way a buyer's own schedule collides with the lawyer's.

What it costs and how long it takes

There is no government-set fee schedule for private conveyancing; lawyers price purchase and mortgage work on their own terms. Market ranges run S$2,000 to S$5,000 all-in for a private property purchase covering purchase and mortgage conveyancing, CPF work, stamp duty handling, disbursements and GST; S$1,500 to S$3,000 for an HDB resale using a private lawyer; often under S$1,000 for an HDB resale using HDB's own in-house legal service on an HDB loan. A transaction with a mortgage typically runs 10 to 12 weeks from signing the sale and purchase agreement to completion, with the buyer's lawyer coordinating the seller's lawyer, the lender and SLA throughout; an HDB resale itself takes a minimum 8 to 10 weeks after the Option to Purchase, on top of whatever time the flat spent being marketed beforehand.

• Private property, SLA schedule: registration of a transfer or mortgage S$68.30, discharge or partial discharge of a mortgage S$45.30, an official search of the land register S$54.25, lodging or extending a caveat S$64.45
• HDB resale, HDB's own disbursement scale: title search S$32, transfer registration S$38.30, buyer's caveat S$64.45, and — where an HDB loan is used — mortgage registration S$38.30 and mortgagee's caveat S$64.45 on top

When title moves without a sale: the second fire

Title also moves on death, and the conveyance that follows depends entirely on how the property was held. A property held in joint tenancy passes automatically and in full to the surviving owner, outside the will and outside the estate — the only conveyancing step is lodging a Notice of Death with SLA, with a certified copy of the death certificate, to update the register. A property held in the deceased's sole name, or as tenants-in-common, has no automatic route: the executor named in a valid will applies for a Grant of Probate, or — where there is no valid will — the next of kin applies for Letters of Administration, before any conveyance of the title can proceed at all. Court processing runs roughly two to three months once the application is filed, on top of whatever time it took to file it, and filing fees run from about S$74 to S$200 depending on estate value — far smaller than the conveyancing lawyer's own professional fee for the transfer that follows the grant. [⚠ estate.probate.eligibility_2026_06_15: sources differ; awaiting a ruling]

A living owner who loses mental capacity before any of this creates a different freeze: without a registered Lasting Power of Attorney, a bank will not let anyone operate that owner's accounts, and no conveyance — sale, refinancing or transfer — can proceed on the strength of a family member's say-so alone. The family must apply to the court for a Deputy under the Mental Capacity Act, a process that runs three to four months where it is contested and needs standard, not simplified, treatment. An LPA made while capacity is intact — Form 1 covers the vast majority of cases and needs no lawyer to draft, only a Certificate Issuer to witness it — sidesteps that entirely, letting a named donee sell, let out or refinance the property once a doctor has certified the loss of capacity. The LPA itself is automatically revoked on the donor's death; at that point the estate route above takes over.

The Voice

Ask this the way you would ask it about any capital decision, because a conveyance sits inside one even when it feels like pure paperwork. Q1: are you borrowing to buy? If yes, the mortgage-side conveyance above is not optional overhead — it is half the transaction, with its own lawyer, its own duty and its own 10-to-12-week clock running alongside the purchase clock. Q2: once you hold it, are you lending it out? That answer decides what the conveyance sets up next — a tenancy agreement and a landlord's obligations if yes, nothing further if the property is for your own use. The conveyance itself does not decide THE PLAY — whether this is a balance-sheet move (buying an asset you intend to hold and let its value sit) or a cash-flow move (buying to generate rent, or borrowing against equity you already hold). It executes whichever play was already decided when the option was exercised.

• BALANCE SHEET — a completed conveyance is what turns an asset from 'under contract' into something the bank will lend against and the CPF ledger will recognise; until title and charge are both registered, neither is fully true on paper
• CASH FLOW — the conveyance itself is a cash outflow with no cash flow reward: legal fees, disbursements, BSD and ABSD are all due before or at completion, in cash if CPF cannot yet disburse, and none of it produces rent or income
• P&L — professional fees and duty paid on a purchase are not an expense against rental income the way mortgage interest is; they sit on the cost base of the asset instead, which is a profit-and-loss question for the exit, not for the year you paid them
• CARRY — a conveyance changes nothing about carry directly, but the 10-to-12-week gap between signing and completion is a period where you may be paying rent or a bridge loan's interest with no offsetting income yet — a temporary negative carry the conveyance's own timeline imposes
• GIVE / GET — you give legal fees, disbursements and duty, all sunk the moment they're paid; you get a title the world recognises and a bank willing to lend against it, which a signed-but-unregistered contract does not give you
• EXPOSED TO — the two clocks running at once: the 14-day duty deadline and the 6-month ABSD refund clock if you are also selling a first home, plus ordinary settlement risk if the seller's own mortgage discharge is delayed
• FOR HOW LONG — 10 to 12 weeks for a typical mortgaged private purchase, 8 to 10 weeks minimum for an HDB resale after the option, and 2 to 3 months of court time on top of that if the conveyance follows a death rather than a sale
• FAILURE CASCADE — a missed 14-day duty deadline or a lapsed 6-month ABSD refund window does not touch cash flow or P&L the way a bad tenant does; it is a fixed cost that arrives regardless, so the cascade here runs the other way: a cash shortfall to meet duty on time is itself the trigger, not the consequence
• LIQUIDITY — none of this is liquid until registration completes; a caveat lodged on your behalf protects your priority but is not the same as owning a registered interest you could borrow against or sell
• CONTROL — you control almost nothing about the conveyance's pace once it is underway; it moves on the lawyer's, the bank's, HDB's and SLA's timetables, not yours, which is exactly why the renovation and moving-date planning above has to wait for it rather than run alongside it
• THE EXIT — the exit from a completed purchase is a future sale conveyance, mirror image of this one, with its own SSD clock if it happens within four years and its own set of fees; the exit from an unregistered, still-pending conveyance is simply not selling at all, because there is nothing registered yet to sell

The B2B spoke

A property agent routinely introduces a buyer to a conveyancing lawyer and a mortgage broker, and both of those referrals can carry money the client never sees named. A mortgage broker is paid a referral commission by the bank on loan disbursal, not by the borrower — disclosed under MAS rules and not added as a markup to the borrower's own rate, so that part of the chain is clean by design. Whether a law firm may pay an agent, or an agent may accept anything, for steering conveyancing work its way is a professional-conduct question this page has not confirmed against the Legal Profession rules directly — ask the lawyer plainly whether any referral arrangement exists before you sign the retainer. What is confirmed is CEA's own rule: any referral fee, reward or benefit an agent receives from a third party connected to the deal must be declared to the client in writing before the client acts on the recommendation, and an agent may never collect commission from more than one party to the same transaction.

What the agent earns on this deal, and where it points

CEA sets no fixed or recommended commission rate for any property type — the amount is whatever the agent and client negotiate, and 8 in 10 consumers surveyed know it is negotiable. Market convention still clusters tightly: roughly 2% of the sale price from a private resale seller, 1% to 2% on an HDB resale, commonly co-broked with the buyer's agent out of that same figure. Median reported agent income runs around S$72,000 a year, with new agents commonly earning S$10,000 to S$40,000 in their first year — a business built on completed transactions, not advised ones. That structure points the incentive plainly: an agent is paid when the conveyance completes, not when the buyer gets the most scrutiny out of their lawyer, the cheapest financing, or the most time to think. An exclusive listing agreement runs up to three months and keeps the client liable for commission even on a sale the client closes themselves inside that window — worth reading before signing, and worth naming here as the one place an agent's own interest and a client's patience can point in opposite directions.