Four separate charges fall due on transfer day, and together they can run to six figures. What each is calculated on, who customarily pays, and where the negotiation actually happens.
The cost of transfer day at the Land Office is not one charge but four, each calculated on a different base, and some depending on how long the seller has held the property. Buyers who have not prepared routinely meet a figure well away from what they expected.
Calculated on the Land Department's assessed value, not the actual sale price. The assessed value is usually below market, which works in your favour here.
Customarily split 50/50 between buyer and seller, but that is a convention rather than a rule. Put the split in the sale and purchase agreement.
Calculated on the assessed value or the sale price, whichever is higher.
It applies when the seller has owned for less than five years. Sellers who have held for more than five years, or whose name has been on the house registration for more than a year, are exempt and pay stamp duty of 0.5% instead.
This single item is what makes transfer-day costs differ most between two deals at the same price.
Payable only where Specific Business Tax does not apply. The two are never charged together.
The most involved of the four. For an individual seller it is progressive: calculated on the assessed value, with a deduction that depends on the number of years held, then annualised.
For a company seller it is a flat 1% of the assessed value or the sale price, whichever is higher — considerably simpler.
The most common arrangement is the 2% transfer fee halved, with the remaining taxes borne by the seller, on the reasoning that those taxes arise from the seller's gain rather than the buyer's purchase.
In a market where the buyer has little leverage, a seller may ask to split everything, or to pass all of it across. That can add several percent to the real cost of the purchase.
Get the assessed value from the Land Office first and calculate the actual figures rather than estimating them.
Then write the split into the sale and purchase agreement explicitly. "Transfer costs to be shared as customary" is a sentence with several readings, and it tends to become an argument on the day.
Waterfront land carries building restrictions ordinary land does not: setbacks from the water, Marine Department permits, and zoning. What to establish before paying for a design.
Two riverside plots of identical area can be worth very different amounts, because of how much of each touches the water. Why that is, and how to compare them properly.
A single plot carries at least two prices. The Land Department's assessed value sets the taxes; the market price is what it changes hands for. Knowing which is which keeps the sums right.
