What it really costs to sell a house in South Africa

Sellers and buyers pay different things. Transfer duty is the buyer's: SARS charges it to the person acquiring the property. In most sales the buyer also carries the transferring attorney's fee and the Deeds Office fees, but the offer to purchase decides that, not the law, so read yours and ask your conveyancing attorney if it is unclear.

The table sets the seller's commission at 5% plus VAT beside the buyer's transfer bill at three prices. The transfer bill is transfer duty (worked from the 2026/27 bands in the Rates and Monetary Amounts and Amendment of Revenue Laws Act 3 of 2026), the LSSA guideline fee for the transferring attorney with VAT, and the Deeds Office fees, before the cost of registering a buyer's own bond. The attorney's fee is a guideline and not a tariff, so real quotes differ.

What follows is the seller's side only. Some costs are set by someone else, some depend on who you hire, and a few depend on your bond and your municipality, so the table says who sets each one, what the amount rests on and when it is paid. We give a rand price only where it is computed, comes from a published source, or is labelled as an example. That is why the compliance certificates have no price here: there is no fixed tariff, contractors quote by the house, and any repairs needed to pass come first. Get two or three quotes, and see the compliance certificates guide for what each certificate covers.

Some costs sit outside the sale itself and are personal to you: repairs beyond what a certificate needs, moving, and any storage or temporary housing. They are real, but we give no figure for them.

Estate agent commission in South Africa is negotiable. The Property Practitioners Act does not set a rate, and there is no minimum. The 5% to 7.5% range is the market range that published seller guides quote, for example Nedbank's seller guide of 22 August 2025. The percentage and the terms are agreed between you and the agency before you sign. A sole mandate changes who may sell your home and when commission is due, so read that guide before you sign one.

VAT is the part that catches sellers out. Agencies normally quote the percentage before VAT, so ask for the figure in writing and ask whether VAT is included. VAT is charged at 15%, so a quoted 5% before VAT is 5.75% of your sale price. In most sales the conveyancing attorney pays the commission out of your proceeds at registration, so you never handle the money. Your mandate says when commission is earned and due.

Ask to see the agent's Fidelity Fund certificate before you sign. Section 56 of the Property Practitioners Act, as gazetted in 2019, says an agent who did not hold one when acting is not entitled to payment for the sale, and that a conveyancer may not pay an agent without a certified copy of a valid certificate. Your conveyancing attorney can tell you how that applies to your sale.

If you have a bond, your bank's attorney cancels it at registration and you pay that attorney's fee out of your proceeds. The fee is negotiable. The LSSA's non-binding fee guideline, effective 1 July 2026, suggests R3 375 before VAT, which is R3 881 with VAT, for drawing the consent to cancel a bond (Section X, item 1(a)). That is before disbursements and bank charges, and which item a bank's attorney applies is for that attorney to say, so ask for a written quote.

Many bond contracts ask for 90 days' written notice that you intend to settle. The Act itself lets you settle at any time, with or without notice, but if you give less notice than your contract asks for, the bank may add an early settlement charge (the Act calls it an early termination charge). Section 125 of the National Credit Act limits that charge: for a variable-rate home loan it is no more than the interest for the gap between three months and the notice you gave. With two months' notice, for example, the gap is one month. A fixed-rate bond is treated differently. We read the Act as gazetted in 2005 and later amendments may apply, and your bond contract matters too, so ask your bank for the figure in writing and ask your conveyancing attorney to check it.

Our guide to selling a house with a bond covers notice, the settlement figures and what happens if you owe more than the sale price.

Before the Deeds Office registers a transfer, the municipality must certify that what is owed on the property has been paid (section 118 of the Municipal Systems Act). We read the section as gazetted in 2000, which looks back two years from the application. It has been amended since, so the current wording is for your attorney. Your conveyancing attorney applies for the figures and you pay them. Many municipalities also bill in advance: Property24 (22 July 2024) says two to six months of rates, and that the municipality refunds the excess if registration happens sooner. Ask your attorney what your municipality bills.

A sectional title unit also needs a levy clearance from the body corporate for what you owe it on the unit, and a freehold home in a security estate may need the homeowners association's consent as well, depending on the estate's rules. How each works, and why clearances delay transfers, is in our rates and levy clearance guide.

Costs arrive in three stages. The first two are normally paid before the balance of the price reaches you, and the third is normally taken from the proceeds. When the balance reaches you, and what the conveyancer does at each step, is in our conveyancing guide.

• Before transfer, usually before you list: compliance certificates, and any repairs needed to obtain them.
• During the transfer: rates and levy clearance figures, paid through your attorney, then reconciled afterwards.
• At registration: commission, the bond settlement and the cancellation attorney's fee, normally taken from the proceeds before the balance reaches you.

Three sales, with an agent at 5% plus VAT and sold privately. The certificate and cancellation amounts are example inputs, the same in every column, and not quotes: yours will differ. The R3 000 for certificates is a round example, not a typical cost, because there is no fixed tariff. The R5 000 for the bond is set above the LSSA guideline's R3 881 with VAT to leave room for disbursements and bank charges, which the guideline does not include. The only line that changes between the two sales is the commission, so the gap between the last two rows is the commission.

Selling privately adds one cost the table leaves out on purpose: the Privately listing fee, R199 a month while your listing is live. It is a flat running cost and not a share of the price, and it is not taken from your proceeds at registration, so it sits outside the proceeds rows. Privately also charges a once-off account fee and has free tiers; the pricing page has the current terms. You still need a conveyancing attorney to transfer the property, and you can find one in our attorney directory.

A private sale takes out the commission and nothing else in the cost table. In order, the money moves like this. Whether an agent is worth the commission is a separate question, covered in selling privately compared with using an agent.

• Price and plan. Work out what you would keep with the what you keep when you sell calculator, using your own price, base cost and years lived in the home, and price the home so it does not sit on the market longer than it needs to: see how to price your home.
• List. The Privately listing fee is R199 a month while the listing is live. There is also a once-off account fee, and the pricing page has the current terms. Compliance certificates are normally arranged before you list.
• Agree an offer. You receive offers and accept one in writing. No commission arises, so the saving in the worked examples starts here.
• Nominate the transferring attorney. As seller you normally nominate the attorney, and the attorney directory lists them. The buyer normally pays the attorney's fee, but your offer to purchase decides.
• Transfer. Rates and levy clearance figures are paid through the attorney. If there is a bond, your bank's attorney prepares its cancellation.
• Registration. The bond is settled and its cancellation fee is paid, and the balance reaches you. The listing fee stops when the listing is no longer live.

If the property is your primary residence, SARS's capital gains tax page lists a R3 000 000 exclusion on the gain and a R50 000 annual exclusion on your total gains for the year, up from R2 000 000 and R40 000 after the Budget 2026 changes. A gain within the exclusion is not taxed. SARS's page gives the new figures but no start date: the 1 March 2026 we use comes from press reports of the Budget, and the legal footing of the increase was still being confirmed when we last checked, so ask a registered tax practitioner which figure applies to your sale.

The date that counts is generally when the sale agreement became unconditionally binding, not when transfer registers, so a sale agreed before the start date may be tested against the older figures. Above the exclusion, or on a property that is not your primary residence, part of the gain is included in your taxable income. What you can prove you spent on the property reduces the gain, so keep those records. The exclusion belongs to the home, not to each owner: SARS says it is apportioned when more than one person has an interest in the residence, so spouses who own half each share one exclusion. (That SARS page still shows the earlier R2 000 000 figure.) Confirm how it applies to your sale with a registered tax practitioner. Our capital gains tax guide works through it, and a registered tax practitioner can work out your own figure.