The price on the listing is never what it costs to buy. On top of it come transfer duty to SARS, the conveyancing attorney, the bond registration costs if you are taking a home loan, and the Deeds Office fees, and a lot of first-time buyers only find out how big that number is once the attorney’s invoice lands. So I built a calculator that adds all of it up before you make an offer.
Put in the purchase price, choose whether you are paying cash or with a bond, and set your deposit. It then shows the total cost of buying, the cash you need to have ready, and a full itemised breakdown so you can see where every rand goes.
Transfer duty, worked out on the real SARS scale. Duty is a sliding scale, so only the slice of the price in each band is taxed at that band’s rate. There is nothing to pay up to R1,210,000, then it climbs from 3 percent. A R1,500,000 home is only R8,700 of duty, which surprises people who assume it is a flat percentage of the whole price. The tool shows which band you are in and the average rate across your price.
The two sides of the cost, kept separate. The transfer side goes to the transferring attorney and SARS. The bond side only applies if you take a home loan, and goes to the bond attorney and your bank, including the once-off bank initiation fee. A bigger deposit shrinks the loan and the bond costs, and a cash buyer skips the bond side completely, so you can toggle between them and watch the number move.
The conveyancing and bond fees use the Law Society guideline scale plus VAT, the same scale most attorneys quote from, so the estimate is close to a real quote rather than a thumb-suck. The Deeds Office fees use the current registry schedule.
As a rough guide it usually lands around 8 to 10 percent of the price on top of the price, a little less under the duty threshold and more on pricier homes, but the whole point is that you get your own number instead of a rule of thumb.
Try it here: Transfer Duty & Bond Cost Calculator South Africa
A few honest notes. The post, petties and FICA lines vary from firm to firm, so those are a typical estimate, not a quote. Attorneys can quote a bit below the guideline, and a bond originator like ooba can often negotiate a discount, so treat the total as a close upper estimate. It assumes a normal resale of an existing home to an individual buyer, a brand-new home bought from a VAT-registered developer works differently, with VAT built into the price instead of transfer duty. It is general information, not legal or tax advice, so always get a written cost estimate from your conveyancer before you sign. I would be glad to hear whether the numbers line up with quotes you have had.