Every cost to sell, line by line
Documentary stamp tax on the deed
Florida charges 70 cents per 100 dollars of the sale price to record the deed, and in Palm Beach County the seller pays it under the standard contract.
The detail most calculators get wrong is the rounding. The statute charges the rate on each 100 dollars "or fractional part thereof," so the price rounds up to the next full 100 dollars before the rate applies. Treating it as a flat 0.70 percent understates the tax on any price that is not a clean multiple of 100.
On an 819,700 dollar sale that is exactly 8,197 units, so the tax is 5,737.90 dollars. On 819,750 dollars it rounds up to 8,198 units and the tax is 5,738.60.
Source: Section 201.02(1)(a), Florida Statutes. Rate unchanged since 1992.
Owner's title insurance premium
Florida fixes title insurance premiums by administrative rule, so every underwriter charges the identical risk premium for identical coverage. Shopping changes the service fees, not the premium.
The schedule is 5.75 dollars per thousand on the first 100,000 dollars, then 5.00 dollars per thousand up to one million. On an 819,700 dollar policy that is 575 dollars plus 3,598.50 dollars, totalling 4,173.50.
If you bought the property less than three years ago and still hold your original owner policy, the reissue schedule applies instead, at 3.30 and 3.00 dollars per thousand. On the same sale that is 2,489.10 dollars, a saving of 1,684.40. Ask your closing agent, because you have to produce the prior policy to claim it.
Source: Rule 69O-186.003, Florida Administrative Code. Promulgated rate.
Who pays for the title policy
In Palm Beach County the seller customarily pays for the owner policy and therefore designates the closing agent. In Broward and Miami-Dade the custom runs the other way and the buyer pays.
This is local custom, not law. Nothing in the Florida Statutes assigns it, and the statewide standard contract offers it as a checkbox with a separate regional provision naming Miami-Dade and Broward.
It is negotiable. On an 819,700 dollar sale it is a 4,173.50 dollar line, which makes it worth negotiating rather than accepting.
Source: Florida Realtors and Florida Bar AS IS Residential Contract, Paragraph 9(c). Custom, not statute.
Association estoppel fee
If your property sits in an HOA or a condominium, the association charges for the estoppel certificate and the seller pays it.
The cap is 299 dollars, with 119 dollars more if you need it inside three business days and 179 dollars more if the account is delinquent. Worst case is 597 dollars.
Note that the figures printed in the statutes are 250, 100 and 150 dollars. Those were superseded by the inflation-adjusted amounts the state publishes, so anyone quoting you the statutory numbers is about 20 percent low. If the association misses its ten business day deadline, it cannot charge you at all.
Source: Sections 718.116(8) and 720.30851, Florida Statutes, as adjusted and published by DBPR under Chapter 2017-93.
Property tax proration
Florida bills property tax in arrears, so you do not write a check to the tax collector at closing. Instead you credit the buyer for your share of the year, from January 1 through the day before closing, and the buyer pays the whole bill in November.
Two details change the number. The proration is computed on the discounted bill, because the contract requires allowance for the maximum available discount, which is the 4 percent November rate. And it runs through the day prior to closing, so a January 1 closing costs you nothing.
For a mid-year closing this is often the third largest deduction after your mortgage payoff and the listing fee. It is also provisional: either party can demand a readjustment when the real bill arrives.
Source: Section 197.162, Florida Statutes, and AS IS Residential Contract STANDARD K.
What the seller does not pay
Recording the deed is a buyer cost under the standard contract, not a seller cost. The seller pays only the recording needed to clear title, meaning satisfactions of mortgage and lien releases, which runs 10 dollars for the first page and 8.50 for each additional page per instrument.
Association application and transfer fees are also a buyer cost, and they are a different charge from the estoppel fee. A net proceeds estimate that merges the two is overstating your costs.
Source: Section 28.24(13), Florida Statutes, and AS IS Paragraph 9(b).
If you are not a US person
FIRPTA requires the buyer to withhold 15 percent of the amount realized when the seller is a foreign person. The rate drops to 10 percent when the buyer takes the property as a residence and the amount realized is over 300,000 dollars but not over one million, and there is no withholding at or under 300,000 dollars on a residence.
This is a withholding, not a cost. Some or all of it can come back when you file a US return, and a reduced withholding certificate can lower it at closing. It still comes out of your proceeds on closing day, so it belongs in your planning.
Source: 26 U.S.C. section 1445.