What are typical seller closing costs in Florida?
How much are the seller closing costs in Florida? How much are real estate sales closing costs?
Charles: Now I'm selling the house, and I'm seeing I should have looked on the other side of the ledger because it seems like the state of Florida has two pretty high fees that the seller has to pay.
Attorney Tom Olsen: You're correct about that Charles.
Charles: I want to see if there's any negotiation on this.
Attorney Tom Olsen: Charles, the standard FAR/BAR contract provides that the seller pays two major expenses. They are doc stamps on the deed, and they are owner's title insurance policy. There's no law that says it has to be that way Charles, but that's the way the standard FAR/BAR contract is set up. If you can convince your buyer to pay some or half of those costs, then I say more power to you. There's no law against it, Charles.
Charles: This document stamp which is 0.7%, that's just like a tax that goes to Florida. You can't negotiate that with a title company to maybe get a lower fee if I call a few different title companies.
Attorney Tom Olsen: No, no, no. It is standard. It written in stone, cannot be changed. State of Florida does not have income taxes, Charles. How does the state of Florida make its money? Well, one of the ways it does is by charging these doc stamps on every deed, every transaction, every sale of purchase of real estate in Florida. That's how they make money. One of the ways they make money.
Charles: Title insurance, I know that the seller usually pay that's differently than too is a buyer who usually gets their own title of insurance down over there. They pay for it, but here it looks like the seller has to pay for the owner's for the buyer's policy right?
Attorney Tom Olsen: It is customary that the seller pay for the owner's title insurance policy, which is for the benefit of the buyer.
Charles: Yes, now can that be negotiated with title companies?
Attorney Tom Olsen: The rate, no. What you pay for title insurance, no. The only thing that can be negotiated is trying to convince your buyer to pay some or all of that owner's title policy. Now Charles, let's say that your closing cost, title insurance, doc stamps came out to be $5,000. If your buyer is borrowing money from a bank, your buyer is going to pay all costs associated with borrowing money, and their cost might be $7,000. So they're not going to be anxious to pay more than their $7,000 they're paying already. But, if your buyer is an all-cash buyer, your buyer's closing cost might be less than $350. If your buyer is an all-cash buyer, then that may be a situation where you try and shift some of those closing costs over to your buyer.
Charles: Okay. All right.
Attorney Tom Olsen: Okay Charles, good luck to you.
Charles: All right, thank you.
Attorney Tom Olsen: Yes, by the way, Charles. We are a title company, Edgewater Title Company is at my office as well. We help people with real estate closings, buying, selling, loan closings. We'd love to assist you, Charles.