How Are Transfer Fees Calculated? | A Legal Guide for Homebuyers In SA

Transfer fees in South Africa are not one charge but three: SARS transfer duty (a sliding scale from 0% to 13%, with nothing payable below R1,210,000), the conveyancing attorney’s fee plus 15% VAT, and the Deeds Office registration fee (a published schedule running from R50 to R7,751). Two of the three are fixed by law and can be calculated exactly before you speak to anyone — only the attorney’s fee is negotiable. On a R2,500,000 purchase with a R2,000,000 bond, R71,346 is already determined by statute and schedule before a single professional fee has been quoted.

What “Transfer Fees” Actually Means — Three Separate Charges

Buyers usually meet transfer costs as a single bundled figure from an online calculator. That figure sums three charges with different legal bases, different recipients, and very different room for negotiation.

Component	Who receives it	Legal basis	Negotiable?
Transfer duty	SARS	Transfer Duty Act 40 of 1949; rates set annually	No — statutory
Conveyancing fee	The transferring attorney	Agreement with the client; guideline tariff is non-binding	Yes
Deeds Office registration fee	The relevant Deeds Registry	Schedule of Fees of Office, s 9(9) Deeds Registries Act 47 of 1937	No — fixed by schedule

Smaller items — postage and petties, FICA verification, electronic lodgement and rates clearance charges — are either absorbed into the conveyancing fee or itemised as disbursements. They should appear on the written quote either way.

SARS Transfer Duty: The Sliding-Scale Bracket Table

Transfer duty is levied under the Transfer Duty Act 40 of 1949 and is payable by the person who acquires the property — the buyer. Rates are reviewed in the annual Budget. The schedule below applies to properties acquired on or after 1 April 2026 and is unchanged from the one effective 1 April 2025.

Value of the property	Transfer duty payable
R1 – R1,210,000	0% — no duty
R1,210,001 – R1,663,800	3% of the value above R1,210,000
R1,663,801 – R2,329,300	R13,614 + 6% of the value above R1,663,800
R2,329,301 – R2,994,800	R53,544 + 8% of the value above R2,329,300
R2,994,801 – R13,310,000	R106,784 + 11% of the value above R2,994,800
R13,310,001 and above	R1,241,456 + 13% of the value exceeding R13,310,000

What Value the Duty Is Calculated On

In an arm’s length sale between unrelated parties, duty is calculated on the consideration payable — the price in the deed of sale. Where the parties are related or no consideration is payable, the declared value applies. Critically, the Commissioner may determine fair value where the consideration or declared value falls below it, and duty is then charged on the greater of the consideration and that determination. The determination may be revised for up to two years after duty was first paid.

Worked Examples Across the Brackets

Purchase price	Calculation	Transfer duty	Effective rate
R900,000	Below the R1,210,000 threshold	R0	0%
R1,500,000	3% × (R1,500,000 − R1,210,000)	R8,700	0.58%
R1,800,000	R13,614 + 6% × (R1,800,000 − R1,663,800)	R21,786	1.21%
R2,500,000	R53,544 + 8% × (R2,500,000 − R2,329,300)	R67,200	2.69%
R3,000,000	R106,784 + 11% × (R3,000,000 − R2,994,800)	R107,356	3.58%
R5,000,000	R106,784 + 11% × (R5,000,000 − R2,994,800)	R327,356	6.55%

The effective rate climbs steeply with value, which is why duty dominates transfer costs at the upper end and is irrelevant at the lower.

When Transfer Duty Must Be Paid

Duty is due within six months of the date of acquisition — ordinarily the date the last party signs the deed of sale, not the registration date. Late payment attracts interest under section 4(1A) at 10% per annum for each completed month. Section 4(3) allows a written application to make a deposit payment where valuation is delayed through no fault of the buyer, which can avoid that interest. Duty is paid electronically through SARS eFiling, normally by the conveyancer, and no transfer can be lodged without the SARS receipt or exemption certificate.

Conveyancing Attorney Fees: What the Law Actually Says

This component is the most often misdescribed. There is currently no binding statutory tariff for a transfer. Section 35(1) of the Legal Practice Act 28 of 2014 would tie fees to tariffs made by the Rules Board for Courts of Law, but its commencement has not been proclaimed, so it is not in operation. Section 35(3) expressly preserves the right of any client to agree in writing to pay above or below any such tariff.

What the profession works from is a recommended guideline tariff on a progressive sliding scale against the purchase price, with the marginal percentage falling as value rises. It is a guideline, not a statutory maximum, and firms routinely quote below it on straightforward files — which is exactly why this is the component worth asking about.

Your Right to a Written Cost Estimate

Section 35(7) of the Act sets out a cost estimate regime: on first receiving instructions, an attorney must give the client written notice of the likely financial implications including fees, charges and disbursements, the hourly rate, and the client’s right to negotiate. Section 35(8) requires a verbal explanation as well, section 35(9) the client’s written agreement, and section 35(10) makes non-compliance misconduct. These subsections also await proclamation — but a well-run practice issues an itemised written quote as standard, and you are entitled to insist on one before signing a mandate.

VAT and Who Carries the Cost

VAT at 15% is added to the conveyancing fee and the bond attorney’s fee. It is not added to transfer duty, which is itself a tax, nor to the Deeds Office fee, which is a statutory disbursement. Always establish whether a quote is VAT-inclusive.

On who pays: transfer duty is the statutory liability of the buyer. By long-standing convention the purchaser also carries the transferring attorney’s fee and the Deeds Office fee, while the seller nominates the conveyancer and pays bond cancellation costs and agent’s commission. That allocation is convention, not statute, and may be varied — but a variation must be recorded in the deed of sale, not left to a verbal understanding that surfaces at registration. Burger Huyser Attorneys handles this work through its Notarial and Conveyancing practice, with Amanda le Roux, a Notary and Conveyancer at the Bedfordview branch, among the practitioners attending to transfers.

Deeds Office Registration Fees

The Deeds Office charges a fixed examination and registration fee to record the transfer in the new owner’s name, set by the Deeds Registries Regulations Board under section 9(9) of the Deeds Registries Act 47 of 1937. The schedule below took effect on 1 April 2026, published in Government Gazette 54225 under Government Notice 7180.

Purchase price	Deeds Office transfer fee
Up to R100,000	R50
R100,001 – R200,000	R114
R200,001 – R300,000	R727
R300,001 – R600,000	R956
R600,001 – R800,000	R1,346
R800,001 – R1,000,000	R1,546
R1,000,001 – R2,000,000	R1,738
R2,000,001 – R4,000,000	R2,408
R4,000,001 – R6,000,000	R2,922
R6,000,001 – R8,000,000	R3,480
R8,000,001 – R10,000,000	R4,068
R10,000,001 – R15,000,000	R4,844
R15,000,001 – R20,000,000	R5,818
Above R20,000,000	R7,751

These are disbursements, not professional fees — the conveyancer collects and pays them through, earning nothing on the line. Note the scale: on a R3,000,000 purchase the Deeds Office takes R2,408 while SARS takes R107,356.

Which Deeds Registry Handles Your Transfer

Transfer fees are calculated nationally: one SARS bracket table, one Schedule of Fees of Office. What varies by location is which Deeds Registry has jurisdiction, and that turns on where the property is situated, not where the buyer or attorney is based. For Gauteng properties the relevant registries are the Johannesburg Deeds Office and the Pretoria Deeds Registry. The fee is identical at either; lodgement queues and turnaround times are not, which is where familiarity with a specific registry affects how quickly a transfer moves. Burger Huyser Attorneys takes conveyancing instructions across Gauteng from branches including Bedfordview, the Linden head office in Randburg, Pretoria (Menlyn) and Centurion, with Chanté Marais practising as a Notary at the Pretoria branch.

Bond Registration Costs — and the “Bond Duty” Myth

A persistent misconception is that SARS levies a separate duty on registering a mortgage bond. It does not. The Transfer Duty Act expressly excludes any right under a mortgage bond from the definition of “property”, so registering a bond attracts no transfer duty at all. If a quote shows a “bond registration duty” payable to SARS, that line is wrong and should be queried.

A buyer taking a new bond pays two things: the bond attorney’s fee (calculated against the bond amount rather than the purchase price, plus 15% VAT), and the Deeds Office bond registration fee, from the same schedule on a scale running from R561 for bonds up to R150,000 to R9,690 for bonds above R30,000,000. The bond attorney is appointed by the bank, though the buyer pays. This is why an originator’s calculator typically shows two stacked figures.

VAT, Exemptions and Special Cases

• VAT and transfer duty are mutually exclusive. Under section 9(15) of the Transfer Duty Act, where a sale of fixed property is a taxable supply by a VAT vendor in the course of its enterprise, VAT takes precedence and no transfer duty is payable — the provision exists to prevent double taxation. This commonly applies when buying from a developer. It does not apply merely because the seller is a registered vendor: the sale of a vendor’s private residence is not made in the course of its enterprise, so duty applies as normal.
• There is no first-time buyer concession. The brackets apply identically regardless of prior ownership. The R1,210,000 threshold is the only relief, and every buyer gets it.
• Buying through a company or trust does not change the duty calculation at acquisition. It changes the downstream tax analysis, not the amount payable on transfer.
• Joint purchases attract duty on the total price — it is not split per co-buyer’s share and each share separately bracketed.
• Going-concern sales may be zero-rated taxable supplies where section 11(1)(e) of the VAT Act is satisfied, in which case section 9(15) again displaces transfer duty.

How the Numbers Come Together — A Worked Example

Take a R2,500,000 purchase by a buyer registering a R2,000,000 bond. Three of the components can be calculated exactly today, from published sources.

Component	Basis	Amount
SARS transfer duty	R53,544 + 8% × (R2,500,000 − R2,329,300)	R67,200
Deeds Office transfer fee	R2,000,001 – R4,000,000 bracket	R2,408
Deeds Office bond registration fee	R1,000,001 – R2,000,000 bond bracket	R1,738
Subtotal — fixed by law and schedule		R71,346
Transferring attorney’s fee + 15% VAT	Quoted per file	Per written estimate
Bond attorney’s fee + 15% VAT	Quoted per file, against bond amount	Per written estimate

R71,346 is not an estimate. It is the exact amount this transaction owes SARS and the two Deeds Registry lodgements under the schedules in force. Everything else is professional fees — and professional fees are the part you can ask about.

What to Watch Out For Before You Sign

1. Treat calculator output as indicative. The binding figure is the conveyancer’s written quote, which accounts for bond cancellation, complex title conditions, multiple buyers and rates clearance.
2. Confirm the quote is VAT-inclusive. On professional fees the difference is 15%.
3. Check the duty line against the current schedule. Rates change in the Budget cycle and stale calculators are common.
4. Query any “bond registration duty” payable to SARS. No such duty exists.
5. Never under-declare the price. SARS may determine fair value and charge duty on the greater amount, and section 13 of the Transfer Duty Act allows recovery of underpaid duty even after registration in the Deeds Registry, with interest and an understatement penalty.
6. Budget for costs below the threshold. A property under R1,210,000 attracts no duty, but the conveyancing fee, VAT and Deeds Office fee still apply.

The practical test of a conveyancer is whether they will break the bundled figure into these components in writing before you commit; Burger Huyser Attorneys’ conveyancing team itemises duty, Deeds Office fees and professional fees separately as standard.

Get an itemised quote, not a calculator estimate. For a file-specific transfer fee breakdown, contact Burger Huyser Attorneys’ conveyancing team. The firm handles property transfers across Gauteng through qualified notaries and conveyancers on staff, with intake points at Bedfordview (011 201 7190), the Linden/Randburg head office (011 888 0246), Pretoria/Menlyn (012 471 5700) and Centurion (012 644 4990). Before quoting, the firm confirms the current SARS transfer duty schedule, the conveyancing fee applicable to your file, and the Deeds Office fees for the relevant Deeds Registry. Burger Huyser Attorneys carries a 4.8/5 average across 250+ Google reviews (Trustindex verified, “Top Rated Law Firm in South Africa”) and was recognised as Commercial Law Firm of the Year 2025 – South Africa at the 5 Star Lawyers Awards.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the difference between transfer duty and transfer fees?

Transfer duty is one specific SARS tax, calculated on the property’s value under the Transfer Duty Act 40 of 1949. “Transfer fees” is a loose commercial term for the whole bundle: the duty itself, the conveyancing attorney’s fee plus VAT, and the Deeds Office registration fee. Duty is a component of transfer fees, not a synonym for them. Ask any quote showing a single bundled figure for its itemisation.

How much are transfer fees on a R1,500,000 property in South Africa?

Transfer duty is 3% of the amount above R1,210,000 — 3% of R290,000, or R8,700. The Deeds Office registration fee for that price bracket is R1,738. Those two are fixed by law and schedule, totalling R10,438. The conveyancing attorney’s fee plus 15% VAT sits on top and is quoted per file. Add the bond attorney’s fee and the Deeds Office bond fee if you are registering a bond.

Who pays the transfer fees — the buyer or the seller?

The buyer. Transfer duty is payable by the person who acquires the property, which is a statutory liability rather than a matter of agreement. By convention the buyer also carries the transferring attorney’s fee, the Deeds Office fee and all bond registration costs, while the seller nominates the conveyancer and pays bond cancellation costs and agent’s commission. That convention is negotiable, but any variation belongs in the deed of sale.

Are transfer fees negotiable?

Only the attorney’s fee. Transfer duty is fixed by the SARS bracket table, and the Deeds Office fee by the Schedule of Fees of Office under the Deeds Registries Act 47 of 1937. There is currently no binding statutory conveyancing tariff: section 35(1) of the Legal Practice Act 28 of 2014 is not yet in operation, and section 35(3) preserves your right to agree fees above or below any tariff in writing.

Do first-time buyers pay transfer fees?

Yes, on the same terms as everyone else. There is no first-time buyer exemption in the SARS schedule — the brackets apply regardless of prior ownership. The only relief is the R1,210,000 threshold, which is available to every buyer. Even below it the conveyancing fee, VAT and the Deeds Office fee still apply, so a duty-free purchase is not a cost-free one.

When must transfer fees be paid?

Transfer duty is due within six months of the date of acquisition — usually the date the last party signs the deed of sale, not the registration date. Late payment attracts interest at 10% per annum for each completed month under section 4(1A). The conveyancer pays it through SARS eFiling, and no transfer can be lodged without the SARS receipt or exemption certificate. Conveyancing and Deeds Office fees are generally settled on or before registration.

Can transfer fees be added to my bond?

Often, but that is a lending decision rather than a legal entitlement. Banks frequently allow transfer duty and registration costs to be capitalised into the loan instead of funded in cash, depending on credit policy, loan-to-value ratio and affordability. Confirm with the bank or bond originator before budgeting on that basis, because if the costs are not capitalised they must be funded ahead of registration.

What happens if I under-declare the purchase price on the deed of sale?

SARS charges duty on the greater of the consideration payable and its own determination of fair value, and may revise that determination for up to two years. Section 13 of the Transfer Duty Act lets the Commissioner recover underpaid duty even after the acquisition has been registered in a Deeds Registry, so registration is no safe harbour. Recovery runs under the Tax Administration Act and can carry an understatement penalty in addition to interest.