In short. Disbursements are amounts your conveyancer or solicitor pays to third parties for your purchase, such as title and certificate searches, lodgement fees and the electronic settlement charge, then passes on to you. They sit on top of the professional fee and depend on the property.
What counts as a disbursement?
Anything bought from someone else in the course of your transaction. Your conveyancer orders it, pays for it, and puts it on your bill at cost. The test is simple: if the money ends up with a council, a registry, a water authority or a search provider rather than with the firm, it is a disbursement.
They exist because much of conveyancing is verification. The searches are how anyone finds out that the land is what the contract says it is, that rates are paid, that no authority has a proposal over it, and that the seller can actually transfer it. The end point, as the Queensland Government puts it, is the land registered in the buyer's name at the land title office1.
What kinds turn up on most purchases?
| Disbursement | What it tells you or does | Paid to |
|---|---|---|
| Title and plan searches | Who owns the land, what is registered against it, where the boundaries sit | The land titles office, often through a search provider |
| Council and authority certificates | Rates owing, planning information, water and sewerage | The council and the water authority |
| Registration and lodgement fees | Records the transfer, and any new mortgage, on the title | The land titles office |
| Electronic settlement fee | Runs the settlement in an online workspace | The settlement platform |
| Strata or owners corporation records | Levies, disputes and planned works for a unit or townhouse | The strata manager or owners corporation |
There are no dollar figures in that table on purpose. Registry and council charges are set by each state and council and change on their own schedules, so a figure copied from another state or another year can mislead. Your conveyancer's estimate for your state is the number to use, and they can tell you which lines are fixed.
Why do two quotes have different disbursements?
Often because of the property, not the firm. A strata unit in Melbourne needs owners corporation records that a freestanding house does not. A rural block may need extra searches for services and access. An off-the-plan purchase runs longer and may need searches repeated closer to settlement. Buying in a different state changes the list entirely, because the searches are set by that state's system.
A quote with very low disbursements may be pricing the simplest possible purchase. Ask whether it matches the property you are actually buying.
Is stamp duty a disbursement?
Treat it as a category of its own. Transfer duty is a state tax assessed on your contract, and it is usually paid as part of the transaction, separately from the firm's fee. Some quotes list it, some leave it out entirely, which is one reason two totals can look very different.
Work the duty out yourself before you compare quotes, using the duty calculator, then check whether each quote includes it. If it does not, add the same figure to both.
What is the electronic settlement fee?
In an electronic settlement, the representatives and the banks prepare, sign and lodge documents online instead of meeting in person. SRO Tasmania, for example, describes it as a way to sign transfers, pay duty, settle and lodge with the land titles office, using PEXA as the approved network2. The platform's fee for the transaction appears in the disbursements.
How to read the disbursements estimate
Ask for it as a list, not a single line. Ask which items are fixed, which are estimates, and what happens if an estimate is exceeded. Then ask the question buyers forget: if the purchase falls through after searches are ordered, what do you still owe? Knowing that before you sign is part of comparing quotes properly.
Once you have that list, the buying costs checklist puts it next to everything else due on the day.