Where they appear
On the Loan Estimate, under Other Costs, the heading Taxes and Other Government Fees lists the amounts to be paid to state and local governments, split into recording fees and other taxes, and transfer taxes.
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Recording fees
Charged by a government authority to record and index the loan and title documents under state or local law. They depend on the type of document or its physical characteristics, such as the number of pages, not on the price or the loan amount.
Transfer taxes
Taxes on the transfer itself, which can be based on the sale price or the loan amount. Any other state or local charge that is not a transfer tax is grouped with the recording fees.
Who pays
Depending on the contract or state law, the seller may end up paying some closing costs. Where our data includes a state's rule on who pays the transfer tax, the result shows it.
How we treat each state
Cindrus calculates a transfer tax only when it has read the official state or county source and can show it with a date. Archived copies and pages we could not reach are not used. Those states read «not calculated» until a live source is verified.
Tolerance
On a Loan Estimate, transfer taxes belong to the group that cannot increase, while recording fees are part of the 10 percent group.