Who pays closing costs in Georgia?

There is no statute allocating closing costs between buyer and seller in Georgia. What exists is custom, which most contracts follow unless the parties write something different. Here is how that custom runs.

What the seller customarily pays

• Real estate commission — by a wide margin the largest line
• Transfer tax — $1.00 for the first $1,000 of price, then $0.10 per additional $100
• Owner's title policy — customary in much of Georgia, and the reason the seller often picks the closing attorney
• Mortgage payoff — with interest to the closing date
• Property tax proration — Georgia bills in arrears, so the seller credits the buyer for the part of the year they owned it
• Recording the cancellation of their existing security deed — $25

What the buyer customarily pays

• Intangible recording tax — $1.50 per $500 of the loan, unless the note is due inside 62 months
• Lender's title policy
• Recording the deed and security deed — $25 each
• Lender fees, appraisal, survey and inspections
• Prepaids and escrow — the first year of insurance and a tax reserve

Split or negotiated

The closing attorney's fee is commonly split, though contracts vary. Survey cost depends on who wants it. And in a buyer's market, seller concessions toward the buyer's closing costs are common — which rearranges all of the above.

Roughly what it adds up to

On a $350,000 Georgia purchase with $280,000 of 30-year financing, a seller paying 6% commission is typically looking at somewhere near 7% of the price in total — overwhelmingly the commission. The buyer, excluding the down payment, is usually in the region of 2 to 3%.

Those are ranges, not quotes. Run yours through the closing cost calculator or the seller net sheet, and call us for the title premium, which Georgia does not let anyone publish as a single statewide figure.