The purchase price is the number everyone plans for. The closing costs are the number that catches people out, and almost all of it is due the same day.
“I called with a last-minute question the day before closing and got a real answer within the hour.”K.W. · Home purchase · Hamilton
Shared with permission. Initials changed to protect client privacy.
Enter your purchase price, flag Toronto and first-time buyer status. Every line updates instantly — no email required.
Land transfer tax is the largest single line here. See the dedicated Land Transfer Tax Calculator → for the full bracket-by-bracket math.
Four lines make up almost every closing statement.
Land transfer tax is the largest single line and it is exact — it comes straight from the statutory brackets, plus the Toronto municipal tax if the property is in the city, less the first-time buyer refunds if you qualify.
Our fee is flat and taxes are included. It is read live from our price list, so what you see here is what you would be quoted today.
Disbursements are the costs we pay on your behalf and pass through at cost: Teranet search fees and registration, our technology and file management charge, title insurance, and other searches and couriers. These are estimates, itemized in your written quote — title insurance in particular moves with the property.
Two things people mistake for closing costs, and one new-build wrinkle.
It excludes your deposit and down payment, which are not closing costs — they are the purchase price arriving in instalments.
It also excludes adjustments. If the seller has prepaid property tax, utilities or condominium common expenses past the closing date, you reimburse them for the unused portion on the statement of adjustments →, settled on closing rather than quoted in advance.
New builds are a different exercise again: development charges, levies, Tarion enrolment and HST on the adjustments themselves all land at closing, and a builder agreement usually caps some of them and not others. Our HST new housing rebate calculator → covers the HST side of a new build.
Say you're buying an $800,000 resale house outside Toronto, not as a first-time buyer. Every line is billed or collected separately — there is no summed "total" here, on purpose, so you can check each figure against your own quote:
Toggle Toronto on and the municipal tax roughly doubles the tax line; toggle first-time buyer on and up to $4,000 (plus $4,475 in Toronto) comes off it. Run your own price in the calculator above — it uses the same live figures as your eventual written quote.
Land transfer tax, legal fees, and disbursements such as title insurance, title and writ searches and registration fees. Land transfer tax is normally the largest of these by a wide margin, and in Toronto it is charged twice — once provincially and once municipally.
No. The deposit and down payment form part of the purchase price. Closing costs are the taxes, fees and disbursements payable on top of it.
Reimbursements to the seller for anything they have prepaid beyond the closing date — property tax, utilities, condominium common expenses. They appear on the statement of adjustments and are payable on closing along with everything else.
Yes. A first-time buyer can claim a land transfer tax refund of up to $4,000 provincially, and a further $4,475 in Toronto. Both are applied by your lawyer at registration rather than claimed afterwards.
Book a 20-minute call with a real estate lawyer — $150, HST included, credited in full toward your file if you retain us (once payment is received), paid by Interac e-transfer.
You’ll pay $150 by Interac e-transfer on the next screen to confirm your time.