Closing Costs in Toronto: The Complete Buyer’s Checklist

Closing costs are everything a Toronto resale buyer pays beyond the purchase price and down payment, and they’re the number most buyers underestimate until their lawyer sends the final statement. Land transfer tax is usually the biggest single line item, but it travels with legal fees, title insurance, property tax adjustments and a handful of smaller costs that together typically run 1.5% to 4% of the purchase price for a standard resale purchase. This guide itemises every closing cost a Toronto resale buyer actually pays, with sourced ranges for each one, so nothing surprises you the week before you get your keys. For the rest of what a Toronto purchase involves, see our complete Toronto real estate guide.

The closing costs every Toronto buyer pays

Three costs apply to nearly every Toronto resale purchase regardless of property type: land transfer tax, legal fees, and title insurance. Land transfer tax is calculated on a sliding scale against your purchase price, and in Toronto you pay it twice over, once to the province and once through the city’s own Municipal Land Transfer Tax. On an average Toronto condo purchase, the combined bill runs close to $20,000 before any first-time buyer rebate. Our guide to how land transfer tax works covers the brackets and a full calculator if you want the exact mechanics; this guide treats it as one line item among several rather than repeating that breakdown.

Legal fees for a standard residential purchase in Ontario typically run $1,000 to $2,500, quoted as a flat fee by most firms, with disbursements, the lawyer’s out-of-pocket costs for the title search, registration and other filings, adding roughly $500 to $800 on top. Title insurance, which protects against certain title defects, fraud and survey issues, usually costs $250 to $400 for most residential purchases, though it can run higher on more expensive properties. Most lawyers include title insurance as a standard part of the closing package rather than pricing it separately, so ask specifically what your quoted flat fee includes before assuming a low headline number covers everything.

What property tax and utility adjustments mean at closing

Adjustments reimburse the seller for anything they’ve already paid that covers a period extending past your closing date. If a seller paid their full year of property tax in January and you close in June, you owe them for the remaining months of coverage you’re about to receive. The same logic applies to prepaid utility deposits or, less commonly now, fuel oil left in a tank. None of this is a fee to a third party; it’s money that passes from buyer to seller through your lawyer’s trust account, calculated to the day of closing.

Your lawyer calculates the exact adjustment figures once they have the seller’s payment history, usually a few days before closing, and includes them on your statement of adjustments alongside every other cost. It’s rarely a large number on a typical resale purchase, but it’s one more reason the final figure you pay at closing is never simply your down payment plus land transfer tax.

The extra closing costs that come with buying a condo

Buying a condo adds two costs a house purchase doesn’t carry. The first is the status certificate review fee: condo corporations can charge up to $100, including tax, for producing the status certificate, and most buyers also pay their own lawyer a separate fee, typically a few hundred dollars, to actually review that document and flag any red flags in the reserve fund, budget or pending litigation. The second is a potential estoppel certificate cost on newer or leasehold arrangements, though this applies less often than the status certificate and is worth confirming with your lawyer if your specific building or unit involves one.

These are small dollar amounts next to land transfer tax, but they matter because they arrive on a compressed timeline: the Condominium Act gives a corporation up to 10 days to produce a status certificate once requested, and your lawyer needs time to review it properly before your conditional offer’s deadline. Budgeting the fee itself is trivial; budgeting the time is the part condo buyers actually get wrong.

What an inspection, appraisal or survey adds, and what’s optional

A home inspection in the Toronto area typically costs $400 to $800, with a smaller condo unit often landing toward the lower end of that range and a larger detached home toward the higher end, depending on the inspector, the property’s age, and any add-ons like thermal imaging. It’s optional in the sense that nothing legally requires it, but skipping it on a resale house is a real risk most buyers shouldn’t take, and even condo buyers benefit from one focused on the unit itself rather than the building’s shared systems.

An appraisal, by contrast, isn’t usually something you pay for directly. Your mortgage lender orders one to confirm the property supports the loan amount, and the cost is typically built into your lender’s fees rather than billed to you separately, though it’s worth confirming with your mortgage provider rather than assuming. A survey, showing the property’s exact boundaries, is less commonly needed on a condo purchase and more relevant to freehold properties without recent survey documentation; title insurance has made a fresh survey unnecessary for most resale transactions, which is one reason title insurance has become close to standard practice.

Roughly what to budget in total

Add it up and a realistic planning range for total closing costs on a Toronto resale purchase, land transfer tax included, runs roughly 1.5% to 4% of the purchase price, with the range driven almost entirely by whether you qualify for a first-time buyer land transfer tax rebate and by your specific legal fee quote. Take TRREB’s July 2026 average City of Toronto condo apartment price, $672,807, as a working example. A qualifying first-time buyer’s combined land transfer tax after both rebates runs roughly $11,387 at that price. Add legal fees and disbursements of $1,500 to $3,300, title insurance of $250 to $400, and a condo-appropriate inspection of $350 to $500, and total closing costs land somewhere between roughly $13,500 and $15,600, or about 2% to 2.3% of the purchase price. A repeat buyer at the same price, paying the full land transfer tax bill instead of the rebated amount, adds close to $8,475 more, pushing total closing costs closer to 3.3% to 3.6% of the purchase price.

What buyers commonly forget to budget for

Moving costs catch a lot of first-time buyers off guard, whether that’s a moving company, a truck rental, or simply the cost of duplicating a month of rent and a mortgage payment during a transition period. Home insurance is another one: your lender requires proof of coverage starting the day you close, not the day you move in, so that premium starts the moment you take title regardless of when you actually arrive.

Condo buyers specifically forget that maintenance fees start on closing day too, prorated for the remainder of the month, on top of whatever they’ve budgeted for the mortgage itself. None of these are large individually, but stacked together with land transfer tax, legal fees, and everything else on this list, they’re exactly the kind of costs that turn a comfortable closing day into a tight one for buyers who planned only for the down payment and the price they saw advertised. Our guide to reducing your land transfer tax is the best place to start if you’re trying to bring the total down, since it’s usually the single largest line item on the list.

Frequently asked questions

What closing costs does every Toronto resale buyer pay?

Every Toronto resale buyer pays land transfer tax, legal fees and disbursements, and, in practice, title insurance, since nearly every lawyer includes it as standard. Land transfer tax is the largest of the three by a wide margin in most cases, calculated on a sliding scale and charged twice in Toronto, once provincially and once through the city’s Municipal Land Transfer Tax. Legal fees for a standard purchase typically run $1,000 to $2,500 as a flat quote, with disbursements for the title search and registration adding roughly $500 to $800 more. Title insurance usually costs $250 to $400 on top of that. These three costs apply regardless of whether you’re buying a condo or a house, and together they make up the bulk of what most buyers mean when they ask what closing costs actually cost in Toronto.

What do property tax and utility adjustments mean at closing?

An adjustment reimburses the seller for anything they’ve already paid that covers time past your closing date, most commonly property tax paid in advance for the year. If a seller prepaid their full annual property tax and you close partway through the year, you owe them for the portion of coverage that now belongs to you as the new owner, calculated to the exact closing date. The same principle can apply to prepaid utility deposits in less common cases. This isn’t a fee paid to a government body or a lawyer; it’s money that moves directly from buyer to seller through the lawyer’s trust account as part of the closing funds. Your lawyer calculates the specific figures once they receive the seller’s payment history, typically a few days before closing, so you won’t know the exact number until close to the date, though it’s rarely a large amount on a typical resale purchase.

What condo-specific closing costs exist beyond the standard list?

The main one is the status certificate review fee: condo corporations can charge up to $100, including tax, to produce the certificate, and most buyers pay their lawyer a separate, larger fee, typically a few hundred dollars, to actually review it and flag anything concerning in the reserve fund, budget, insurance or pending litigation. Some newer buildings or leasehold arrangements involve an estoppel certificate with its own cost, though this comes up less often than the status certificate and is worth confirming directly with your lawyer for your specific building. These fees are small next to land transfer tax, but the real risk with condo-specific costs isn’t the dollar amount, it’s the compressed timeline: your lawyer needs real time to review the status certificate properly before your conditional offer’s deadline expires, so build that review time into your offer from the start rather than treating it as a formality.

Roughly what percentage of purchase price should I budget for closing costs?

A realistic planning range for total closing costs on a Toronto resale purchase, land transfer tax included, is roughly 1.5% to 4% of the purchase price, with the gap between those two numbers driven mainly by whether you qualify for a first-time buyer land transfer tax rebate. A qualifying first-time buyer, who can claim up to $8,475 in combined provincial and Toronto rebates, sits toward the lower end of that range. A repeat buyer paying the full land transfer tax bill sits toward the higher end, since that tax alone typically makes up more than half of total closing costs on an average-priced Toronto purchase. There’s no single number that fits every buyer, which is exactly why this guide breaks the total into its individual pieces rather than offering one flat percentage and leaving you to guess which end of it applies to you.

What do buyers most often forget to budget for beyond the standard closing costs?

Moving costs are the most common one, whether that’s a professional mover, a truck rental, or simply covering a month where rent and a new mortgage payment overlap during the transition. Home insurance is another: lenders require proof of coverage starting on your closing date, not your actual move-in day, so that premium begins the moment you take title even if you haven’t set foot in the property yet. Condo buyers specifically forget that maintenance fees start accruing on closing day too, prorated for whatever remains of the month, on top of the mortgage payment they’ve already budgeted for. None of these costs are large on their own, but combined with land transfer tax, legal fees and the rest of the standard list, they’re exactly the kind of costs that catch buyers who planned only for the down payment and the advertised purchase price.