Calculates your monthly bond repayment, total loan cost, and checks affordability based on South African National Credit Act (NCA) guidelines and bank lending ratios.
Free, no sign-up
Calculate →
What are property transfer and bond registration costs?
When you buy property in South Africa, the price is not the only cash you need. Ownership has to be registered in your name at the Deeds Office, and if a bank finances the purchase, its mortgage bond has to be registered too. Both steps are done by attorneys who are admitted as conveyancers, and both come with fees, disbursements and VAT. These costs are separate from transfer duty, which is paid to SARS and has its own calculator.
What the calculator includes
- Transfer attorney's fee: the fee of the conveyancer who attends to the transfer, normally appointed by the seller and paid by the buyer.
- Bond attorney's fee: charged by the attorney who registers the bond, usually chosen by the bank. It applies only if there is a bond.
- Deeds Office fees: the official fees for registering the transfer and the bond. They depend on the purchase price and bond amount bands in the Deeds Office fee schedule.
- Postages, petties and other disbursements: such as FICA verification and electronic generation charges.
- Clearance certificates: municipal rates clearance and, for sectional title and estate properties, the levy clearance from the body corporate or HOA.
- VAT at 15% on attorney fees and VAT-able disbursements.
How the calculation works
The calculator adds the transfer attorney's fee and, if there is a bond, the bond attorney's fee. It adds the other VAT-able disbursements and applies 15% VAT to that sum. It then adds the Deeds Office fees (the bond fee only if there is a bond) and the clearance costs. The levy clearance counts only for sectional title or HOA/estate properties. The result is the estimated total, also shown as a percentage of the purchase price.
Conveyancing fees are no longer fixed by a mandatory tariff, so firms quote their own fees. Law society guideline tariffs by price band are a useful reference. That is why you enter the amounts from your quote and the Deeds Office schedule, so the estimate matches your transaction.
Worked example
Take a freehold house at R1,500,000 with a R1,200,000 bond. The transfer attorney quotes R32,000 and the bond attorney R12,000, so attorney fees are R44,000. Other disbursements are R3,500. VAT at 15% on R47,500 is R7,125. Deeds Office fees are R2,100 for the transfer and R1,700 for the bond, a total of R3,800. The rates clearance is R1,200. The total is R44,000 + R3,500 + R7,125 + R3,800 + R1,200 = R59,625, about 4% of the price. These amounts are illustrative only.
Common situations
- Cash purchase: leave the bond box unticked and the bond fees drop out, so costs are noticeably lower.
- Sectional title: add the levy clearance from the managing agent or body corporate.
- Estate or HOA: the HOA clearance and sometimes extra fees for the homeowners' association apply.
- 100% bond: banks do not normally finance transfer costs, so you still need cash for these costs unless you negotiate otherwise.
Who pays what?
By custom the buyer pays the transfer costs and the bond costs, while the seller pays the estate agent's commission and the cost of cancelling any existing bond. This is a custom, and the parties can agree otherwise in writing. Record it clearly in the sale agreement.
What to prepare next
Settle who bears which cost before you sign. The Offer to Purchase Agreement records the purchase price, the deposit, the bond condition and the allocation of transfer costs. Once you know the purchase price and bond amount here, you can carry them straight into that document and ask the conveyancer for a written quote before you commit.