Closing Costs Beyond the Down Payment: What Buyers Actually Pay

Buyer Advice Dave Dubbin August 7, 2026

If you are buying in Toronto, plan for roughly 3 to 4 percent of the purchase price in closing costs on top of your down payment. On an 850,000 dollar purchase that is somewhere around 31,000 to 35,000 dollars, and the biggest single reason is land transfer tax, which Toronto buyers pay twice. The rest is a stack of smaller items, legal fees, title insurance, adjustments, that are individually manageable and collectively surprising. Here is the full list, with real math, as of August 2026.

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Land transfer tax: the heavyweight

Ontario charges a land transfer tax on every purchase, and the City of Toronto charges its own municipal version on top with matching brackets for most price points. Both are marginal rate taxes, meaning each slice of the price is taxed at its own rate, the same way income tax works. On an 850,000 dollar home, each tax works out to 13,475 dollars. Buy inside Toronto's borders, including all of Etobicoke, and you pay both: 26,950 dollars.

First time buyers get real relief here, up to 4,000 dollars back on the provincial tax and up to 4,475 dollars on the municipal one, a combined 8,475 dollars. And if you are shopping above 3 million dollars, note that Toronto added higher municipal brackets for luxury purchases, most recently updated in April 2026.

Legal fees and disbursements

A real estate lawyer handles the title search, registers the deed, moves the money and fixes problems before they become yours. Budget roughly 1,800 to 2,500 dollars including disbursements, which are the out of pocket costs your lawyer pays on your behalf, things like registration fees and title searches. Cheap legal work is not where we would economize on the largest purchase of your life.

Title insurance

Title insurance protects you against defects in ownership, survey issues and certain kinds of fraud. It is a one time premium, usually somewhere between 400 and 900 dollars depending on the property, paid through your lawyer at closing. Almost every lender requires it, and we think it is worth having even when one does not.

Budgeting for a purchase? These will help round out the picture:

Adjustments: paying the seller back

On closing day your lawyer trues up anything the seller prepaid past the closing date, property taxes most commonly, sometimes utilities or, in a condo, a month of maintenance fees. This is not an extra tax, just a reimbursement, but it arrives on the same statement as everything else, so it feels like one. The amount varies with timing. A few hundred to 1,500 dollars is a sensible allowance.

The smaller line items

A home inspection typically runs 450 to 650 dollars and remains the best few hundred dollars a buyer can spend. Some lenders charge for an appraisal. Movers, elevator deposits and the first round of locks and utility hookups add up quickly. And if you are putting down less than 20 percent, your mortgage default insurance premium gets added to the loan itself, but Ontario charges 8 percent PST on that premium and the tax portion is due in cash at closing. With 10 percent down on 850,000 dollars, the premium is about 23,715 dollars and the PST about 1,897 dollars. That last number catches people off guard every year.

The worked example

Here is the full picture for an 850,000 dollar resale purchase in Etobicoke, repeat buyer, 20 percent down:

Item	Cost
Ontario land transfer tax	$13,475
Toronto municipal land transfer tax	$13,475
Legal fees and disbursements	$1,800 to $2,500
Title insurance	$400 to $900
Home inspection	$450 to $650
Adjustments	$500 to $1,500
Moving and incidentals	$1,000 to $2,500
Total beyond the down payment	Roughly $31,000 to $35,000

Land transfer tax figures calculated from current Ontario and City of Toronto rate brackets, August 2026. Other items are typical ranges and your quotes may differ.

A first time buyer on the same purchase would knock up to 8,475 dollars off the land transfer line and land closer to 23,000 to 27,000 dollars all in.

How to budget without surprises

Treat closing costs as part of the price, not an afterthought. In finance terms this is a liquidity question: the rebates and the mortgage cover a lot, but these items are due in cash on one specific day, so the money needs to be sitting in an account, not locked in investments, well before closing. Our rule of thumb is simple. Set aside 4 percent of your target price, and if you close under budget the leftovers become furniture.