Ask any firm three questions before you instruct it on a halal purchase: which Islamic finance providers it has completed with, whether it can act for your provider as well as for you, and whether the finance work sits inside the fixed fee. The answers separate a firm that does this work regularly from one that is about to learn on your transaction — and on a home purchase plan that difference is measured in weeks.
Why this is a different question from picking any conveyancer
On a conventional purchase there is one buyer, one seller and a lender taking security. On a home purchase plan there is a buyer, a seller, and a provider that is genuinely acquiring an interest in the property alongside you. The transfer, the lease or co-ownership agreement, and the provider's own requirements all have to complete on the same day, in the right order, and be registered so that they still make sense in ten years' time.
None of that is exotic. It is just unfamiliar, and unfamiliar is what costs time. If the structures themselves are new to you — Diminishing Musharaka, Ijara, Murabaha — start with what each one puts on your title deeds.
Question 1 — Which Islamic finance providers have you completed with, and how recently?
"We can do it" is not the same answer as "we did four last quarter." You are trying to find out whether the firm has met your provider's document pack before, because that pack is not a mortgage offer and cannot be read like one.
A firm that has seen it knows which conditions bite, what the provider will want evidenced, and what it has to lodge at the end. A firm that has not will read it from cold, and you will feel that as silence in week three.
Question 2 — Are you on my provider's panel, and can you act for both of us?
On most purchases the lender instructs your solicitor to act for it as well. The same is usually possible here: the full legal work for you and for your finance provider in one firm, which is what stops the two sides waiting on each other.
Two conditions have to be met before that happens, and they are worth understanding separately.
The commercial one: the firm has to be acceptable to your provider. Being on the panels of the major high street banks and building societies, as we are, is a good sign about how a firm is regarded generally — but it is a count of conventional lender panels, and the specific Islamic provider you are using is the one that matters.
The professional one: acting for two parties in the same transaction is permitted only where the SRA's conditions for doing so are met, and it stops being permitted if a conflict arises between your interests and the provider's. A firm that has thought about this will tell you where the line is before it takes your money. If separate representation is required, that means a second firm, a second fee and a slower file — better known at the quote stage than in week four.
Question 3 — Is the finance work inside the fixed fee?
The structure changes the paperwork. It should not change the promise.
Our published range for a standard residential purchase with one mortgage is £1,250–£1,950 + VAT (£1,500–£2,340 including VAT at 20%), with typical disbursements of £350–£900 on top. Sharia-compliant finance is one of the things our fees page lists as capable of increasing that cost, because the legal work genuinely is more involved — and where extra work is needed we charge it as an additional fixed fee, typically £50–£750 + VAT per item, agreed and confirmed in writing before it is carried out.
The point is not that it is cheap. The point is that it is itemised, agreed before we start, and does not move afterwards. If you want the full arithmetic, we have itemised what a halal purchase costs in legal fees.
What a firm that has done this before actually does differently
If you want to test the answers rather than take them, these are the places inexperienced files stall. They are boringly predictable, and almost never caused by the client:
- The documents arrive and nobody recognises them. The provider's pack is a set of acquisition documents. A firm reading them from cold loses days before it can report to you at all.
- The report to the client is wrong-shaped. You need to be told how the structure works — rent, share, exit — not just what a mortgage condition says. That report has to be written, not adapted.
- The provider's requirements get treated as optional. They are not. If they are not satisfied precisely, funds do not move on completion day.
- The registration is left to guesswork. Getting the co-ownership or leasehold structure onto the title correctly is the whole job, and a wrong entry is invisible until you sell.
- Stamp Duty gets handled as though it were an ordinary purchase. See below — this one is expensive.
You should also expect the ordinary things a good conveyancer gives anyone: a named solicitor with a direct line, updates at every milestone so you are never the one chasing, and cover when your solicitor is away.
The Stamp Duty question worth asking too
Because the provider buys the property as part of the structure, a naive reading of the transaction shows two purchases — and therefore two Stamp Duty bills. HMRC's alternative property finance relief exists precisely so that Islamic finance buyers are not taxed twice on the same home.
The relief does not apply itself. It has to be claimed correctly on the return, which is part of what we do on every one of these purchases. A firm that files the return as though it were an ordinary purchase creates a problem that surfaces as an HMRC enquiry long after everyone has moved in.
The short version
Islamic home finance is not harder than a conventional purchase. It is different, in ways that are entirely manageable if the firm has done it before and quietly expensive if it has not. That is the whole case for choosing a solicitor by experience rather than by price alone — and it is why our Sharia-compliant home purchase team works with these structures every month rather than once a year.
Questions people ask
Why can't my usual conveyancer just do it?
They may be able to. The question is whether they have done it recently and whether your provider will accept them. A capable firm meeting a home purchase plan for the first time is not doing anything wrong — it is simply learning on your transaction, at your pace, in a market where a fortnight can cost you the house.
Does using Islamic finance make the purchase slower?
It should not. The searches, enquiries, exchange and completion run exactly as on any other purchase; the finance documents run alongside them rather than after them. Where halal purchases get a reputation for being slow, the cause is usually the legal side rather than the product.
Can one firm act for me and for the provider?
Usually, yes — and it is faster when it happens, because neither side is waiting on the other's solicitor. It depends on the provider's own panel rules and on the professional conduct position, both of which we confirm at the quote stage rather than three weeks in.
What happens if my provider changes the structure mid-transaction?
If it happens, the documents change and so does what we register, but the purchase itself does not restart. We would tell you what it means for your title and your timeline.
Shah leads the firm’s Islamic finance work and its CQS accreditation, and has completed halal purchases with every major UK provider.
This article is general information, not legal advice. For advice on your own matter, make an enquiry — it's free and confidential.