Seller’s Fee – Why Do You Have To Pay This?

Fees

By now if you’ve been reading our blog posts, you know that there are fees in a real estate transaction that apply to both the buyer and the seller. Some people are confused by what costs the seller is responsible for, and what exactly they’re getting for services to justify that fee.

Cumberland Title charges $125 to the seller when we are closing a real estate transaction. Some of the things that the title company has to do in relation to the seller is contact the creditors that the seller wishes to pay off with the proceeds of the sale to get final payoff figures for the outstanding balances, this includes the current mortgage on the house. (And some of these creditors even charge a fee just to get this information!)

In a nutshell, these fees cover costs/manpower associated with:

  • Ordering, obtaining and reviewing the title (so that there are no “surprises” that could potentially prevent the real estate transaction)
  • Obtaining tax information from the municipality
  • Payoff of liens, previous mortgages, etc.
  • Closing document preparation
  • Communication with borrowers, sellers, brokers, etc.
  • Conducting the closing
  • Final recording of documents and any other matters relating to the loan closing.

Sure, you can go your own route and choose to hire a real estate attorney to do these things for you, but it’s most likely their hourly fee will be much higher than our “one time” fee. And then there’s also the convenience and logistics of having one title company handle the entire transaction from start to finish, with fewer risks of communication issues.

If you have more detailed questions about this or any aspect of the title company’s role in the real estate transaction, please feel free to reach out to us at matthew@cumberlandtitle.com