Sellers usually find out what closing will cost them somewhere around the day it happens. The contract gets signed, the title company is chosen by whoever mentioned one first, and the seller’s side of the settlement statement is a surprise. It does not have to work that way.
Esquire Land Title handles seller-side closings across Lee, Collier, Charlotte and Sarasota counties from offices in Cape Coral, Naples, Punta Gorda, Port Charlotte and Venice.
Whether You Pay for Title Insurance Depends on Your County
It is often said that in Florida the seller pays for the buyer’s title policy. That is true in most of the state and it is true in half of our service area, but it is not a rule and it is not universal. Nothing in the Florida Statutes assigns the cost to either party — it is negotiable in the contract, and when the contract is silent, local custom controls:
- Lee County (Cape Coral, Fort Myers): the seller customarily pays for the owner’s policy and customarily selects the title company.
- Charlotte County (Punta Gorda, Port Charlotte): the seller customarily pays and selects.
- Collier County (Naples): the buyer customarily pays and selects.
- Sarasota County (Venice): the buyer customarily pays and selects.
If you are selling in Cape Coral and buying in Naples, that flips twice inside one move. Knowing which side of the line you are on before you sign is worth more than any negotiating tactic at the closing table.
You Choose the Closing Company
Where custom puts the cost on the seller, the choice of title company is the seller’s to make. That choice is worth using. The company running your closing controls how early you see your numbers, how quickly problems in the file get worked, and whether anyone tells you what is happening between contract and closing.
Ask for a written estimate of the seller’s charges before you commit. Any title company that will not produce one is telling you something.
What Comes Out of Your Proceeds
A Florida seller’s side generally includes:
- Documentary stamp tax on the deed — $0.70 per $100 of consideration in every Florida county except Miami-Dade, calculated on the sale price and rounded up to the next $100.
- The owner’s title insurance premium, where county custom or your contract puts it on you. Florida promulgates title insurance rates, so the premium itself is the same figure at any agency in the state.
- Mortgage payoffs, plus any home equity line, judgment lien or tax lien of record.
- Prorated property taxes through the closing date, and prorated association dues.
- Association estoppel fees, capped by Florida statute, and any municipal lien search.
- Real estate commission and any repair or closing-cost credits you agreed to.
- Settlement and closing fees — the part that actually varies between companies, and the part you should see in writing up front.
Problems Found on Your Own Title
Sellers are often surprised that the search turns up something on a property they have owned for twenty years. It happens constantly: a mortgage paid off in 2009 whose satisfaction was never recorded, a contractor’s lien from post-hurricane repairs, a deceased co-owner whose interest was never cleared, an ex-spouse still on the deed, a legal description that does not match the survey.
These are the seller’s to clear, and they are the most common reason a closing slips. Esquire Land Title has a Florida real estate attorney inside the firm, so curative work begins when the defect is found rather than after the file has been sent to outside counsel and queued. Where a matter requires formal legal representation — a quiet title action, for instance — that work is handled by Prell Spearing Law Firm, a separate law firm.
If You Are Not a Florida Resident
Two things catch out-of-state and foreign sellers. First, FIRPTA: if the seller is a foreign person for U.S. tax purposes, federal law requires withholding from the sale proceeds unless an exception applies. That has to be identified early, not on closing day. Second, signing remotely — whether by mail-away package or remote online notarization — needs to be arranged in advance so the documents are in the right form when they arrive.
Get Your Seller’s Estimate
Send us the contract, or just the address and sale price, and we will put your figures in writing before you are committed to anything. Call (239) 400-5540, email Info@esquirelandtitle.com, or use the contact page. If you are buying as well as selling, see title insurance for buyers.