Submit the form below to receive a copy of my Seller’s Guide.
The guide will be sent to your email after submission.
Kentucky charges a mandatory state transfer tax (often listed on your settlement sheet as a “deed tax”) to legally transfer the property title from you to the buyer. The rate is $1.00 per every $1,000 of the property’s sale price (or 0.10%).
In Kentucky, property taxes are paid in arrears (meaning you pay for the current year at the end of the year). At closing, you are required to pay property taxes prorated for the exact number of days you owned the home during the calendar year up until the closing date. This money is deducted from your proceeds and given as a credit to the buyer, who will eventually pay the full bill when it arrives in the fall.
o ensure the buyer receives a “clean title,” a local Bluegrass title company will handle the legal paperwork. As the seller, you will typically pay a settlement/closing fee (usually $150 to $400) to the title company for executing the paperwork. You will also cover the county deed recording fees, which generally cost around $50 to update the local public property records.
In Central Kentucky real estate customs, the buyer typically pays for both the Lender’s and the Owner’s Title Insurance policies. However, everything in a real estate contract is up for negotiation. If you are selling in a slower pocket of the market or trying to incentivize a buyer, they may ask you to cover the cost of the Owner’s Title Insurance policy as a negotiation concession.
Seller concessions occur when you agree to pay a portion of the buyer’s closing costs to help them close the deal. In highly competitive sub-markets, buyers frequently ask for 1% to 2% of the purchase price to help buy down their mortgage interest rate or cover their loan origination fees. While completely optional, concessions act exactly like a closing cost by directly lowering your net proceeds.
