Let’s talk closing costs! You’ve bought or sold a home! Now you need to figure out what this will cost you.

What are closing costs?

Closing costs are all the things you need to pay to complete your transaction – they vary depending on whether you are buying or selling, and what kind of property you have.

Here are some examples of common closing costs:

  • registration costs (filing fees for the land title office, manufactured home registry or First Nations registries, or the Land Owner Transparency registry)
  • government taxes (property transfer taxes, GST, PST, non-residency taxes, Speculation and Vacancy Tax arrears, Land Tax Deferment Act charges, municipal or rural property taxes)
  • insurance costs (insurance premiums, fees for property insurance binders or title insurance policies)
  • strata documentation (ordering strata documents required for registration, fees for 2 years’ minutes and other strata due diligence searches, etc.)
  • your share of annual or quarterly expenses for park fees, strata fees, utilities or property taxes
  • move in/out fees for strata or manufactured home parks
  • final meter reading or hookup fees for utilities
  • mortgage lender fees and costs (lender’s legal costs and disbursements)
  • mortgage broker fees
  • rush fees
  • fees to do the things you promised you would do in your contract (repairs, painting, cleaning)
  • REALTORĀ® commissions or fees
  • due diligence searches (title searches, tax and utilities certificates, strata or park searches)
  • legal fees
  • legal service costs (trust administration fees, insurance fees, photocopying costs, fees for computer database programs or instruction portals)
  • moving fees
  • mail forwarding fees
  • storage fees
  • survey fees
  • costs involved in dealing with tenants

How do I pay these closing costs?

Some of these closing costs you will pay yourself, such as cleaning fees, storage fees, moving fees or property insurance.

Some of these closing costs you will pay through your Realtor, broker or BC Notary or lawyer. For example, your BC Notary or lawyer will organize the following things for you (and include the costs for them in your closing costs financial statement):

  • title search
  • tax certificate
  • property transfer taxes
  • utilities searches (where appropriate)
  • ordering certain strata documents required by various registries (different than the copies of minutes and bylaws you order when doing your initial investigations)
  • BC Assessment certificate
  • subdivison or strata plan
  • title insurance
  • property insurance binders (when a mortgage is involved)

These are examples only – there might be other costs involved in your particular transaction that we won’t know about until we see your contract. While your BC Notary or lawyer will often help you organize the payment of these closing costs, it always remains your responsibility to ensure that they get paid properly and in full.

What will they cost?

Closing costs for these services varies depending on:

  • what kind of property you are buying or selling
  • how fast your transaction is happening
  • what kind of lender you are using
  • whether there are any charges on the title that need dealing with
  • where your property is located
  • how complicated your contract is
  • whether all of the people involved in the contract are alive and capable
  • the charges billed to you by third party service providers

Your BC Notary or lawyer will charge you fees for their work on your transaction. These fees vary depending on the speed of the transaction, the type of property, its location, your lender, and the state of the property’s title.

In addition to fees, we will also charge you for various expenses for things we need to pay to others to carry out the work they do for you. For example, here are some closing costs we arrange for you as part of your transaction:

  • tax and utilities certificates
  • strata documentation required by registries
  • costs for service provider portals
  • subdivision or strata plan
  • BC Assessment certificate
  • governing body fees

The cost for these expenses also vary. For example, all legal services providers use computer database programs that help them prepare paperwork and financial statements for your transaction, but the cost of those programs varies from $32 to almost $300 per file. That can make a significant difference in your overall closing costs budget.

How to ask for an estimate

If you are asking for estimates, ask, your BC Notary or lawyer to break that estimate down into fees and expenses so you can compare apples to apples. If the number you got from one legal services provider only includes their fees, and not any of the other costs, you will not be able to compare it to an estimate from another BC Notary or lawyer who gave you a comprehensive estimate for legal fees and expenses.

Ball-parks, estimates and quotes

A “ball-park” number is a guess at what your legal fees and expenses will be, based on the information you provided to us. It will likely be a fairly wide range, because it can be difficult to provide a more accurate number without more detailed information. This can be helpful for budgeting purposes, but will not be exact (or sometimes even close) to your final number.

We give estimates based on the information we have about your transaction. In order to give an estimate, we will ask you a series of questions about your transaction. If the work changes (for example you switch lenders, or want to move your completion date up to a few days from now), then the estimate will not be accurate, and you will need to ask for a revised estimate.

Quotes are more detailed, specific, written documents showing the costs for your transaction as closely as we can get them. We give quotes only very rarely, as the work required for these files regularly change in scope and cost. If you would like a quote, we will ask you for your contract and lender instructions in order to determine the work involved.

Call us and we’d be happy to chat with you about the legal fees and expenses part of your closing costs budget!

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