When purchasing a home, it is important to ensure that you, as purchaser, are aware of the costs that you will have to make provision for, as you cannot be guaranteed to have these included in your bond application amount and approved. Certain requirements exist for qualification for this product, and each banks has different criteria Costs, the purchaser, should make provision for include transfer and bond costs.
Bond costs would be payable to the attorney instructed by your new bonding bank. These would include the attorneys fee, some disbursements (payable to third parties eg software utilized by the firm, a lodging agent, deeds searches, FICA compliance, as well as postages and petties). Transfer costs are payable to the transferring attorney, usually appointed by the seller.
Transfer costs is a collective reference to a multitude of items. The items include the conveyancer’s fee, which is calculated according to a tariff released by the Legal Practice Council annually, based purely on the purchase price or municipal value. The tariff is available on our website www.tuckers.co.za . Another item is transfer duty, which is the tax payable on the purchase of the property, to SARS. The conveyancing firm takes no commission on this amount, which amount is also determined on a sliding scale and payable on any purchasers of more than R1.1m. In most instances the transfer duty payable way exceeds the actual conveyancing fee. Other items would related to disbursements which entail software charges for submission of transfer duty, FICA compliance, deeds searches and document drafting. A charge is often also levied for a lodging agent, where the firm retains the services of a freelance conveyancer who registers the actual deeds on their behalf. Lastly a fee is included for postages and petties, which is a “cover all” fee relating to travels, postages, deliveries, couriering and collections.
A last costing that is also to be borne in mind is the fee charged by the Deeds Office for the registration, which is also gazetted annually and based on purchase price.
It is therefore clear that transfer costs are not all payable to the conveyancing firm, but includes transfer fees, duties, disbursements and deeds office fees in general, and are not all fees that the conveyancing firm retains.
Should you require any assistance with legal concept or any other please contact us on 011 897 1900, 076 777 1920 or info@tuckers.co.za
ARTICLE CONTRIBUTED BY HAYLEY APPEL OF TUCKERS ATTORNEYS