Who Pays Closing Costs in a Massachusetts Cash Sale?

In Massachusetts, a seller customarily pays the deed excise (transfer stamps), their own attorney, the cost of discharging and recording the payoff of any mortgage, and prorated taxes and utilities. In a direct cash sale, the buyer usually pays the closing attorney and recording costs and often absorbs the seller's customary items too — but the mortgage payoff, liens, and back taxes always come out of your proceeds.

The short answer

In Massachusetts, the seller customarily pays four things at closing: the deed excise (the transfer stamps), their own attorney if they hire one, the cost of discharging and recording the payoff of any mortgage, and their share of prorated property taxes and utilities. The buyer customarily pays the closing attorney, the title search and title insurance, and the recording of the deed.

In a direct cash sale, that split usually shifts in the seller’s favor. Most cash buyers pay the closing attorney and the recording costs, and many also agree to absorb the seller’s customary excise, which can leave a seller with little or nothing due at the table.

One thing no buyer covers, in any kind of sale: money already owed against the house. Your mortgage payoff, any liens, and unpaid property taxes come out of the sale price before you see a dollar. That is why the settlement statement, not the contract price, is the number worth looking at.

The costs a Massachusetts seller normally sees

Here is the full menu. Not every item applies to every sale.

1. Deed excise, also called transfer stamps. A state tax based on the sale price, charged at a set rate per $500 of value and paid at the registry when the deed records. Barnstable County and the islands generally add a county or land bank fee on top. The Department of Revenue explains the excise at mass.gov. By custom the seller pays it, but custom is not law, and it can be assigned differently in the purchase and sale agreement.
2. Attorney fees. Massachusetts is an attorney-closing state, so a lawyer is running the closing regardless. In a financed sale the buyer’s lender picks and the buyer pays for the closing attorney. A seller who wants their own counsel pays separately, and sometimes should — more on that in do you need a real estate attorney to sell in Massachusetts.
3. Recording fees. Flat registry charges for recording the deed and for recording the discharge of your old mortgage. Small numbers, but they land on the settlement statement.
4. Mortgage payoff and per diem interest. The lender quotes a payoff good through a specific date, including interest accrued to that day. Some servicers add a discharge or tracking fee.
5. Liens and back taxes. Municipal tax liens, contractor liens, an old home equity line nobody remembered, a judgment against a co-owner. Title work surfaces these, and they are paid at closing out of proceeds.
6. Prorations. Property taxes are adjusted between buyer and seller as of the closing date, along with final water and sewer readings and, in some sales, remaining heating oil or propane.
7. Certificates and inspections. A smoke and carbon monoxide detector certificate from the local fire department is generally required at transfer for most one- to four-family homes. If the property is on septic, a Title 5 inspection is typically required at transfer, with certain exemptions and alternatives described on mass.gov. Condominiums generally need a 6(d) certificate from the association.
8. Commission, in a listed sale. Not technically a closing cost, but it is usually the largest deduction on the page.

Who typically pays what

The table below shows customary allocation in Massachusetts. Custom is a starting point, not a rule — every line is negotiable and belongs in the written agreement.

What a no-lender sale takes off the list

Some costs exist only because a mortgage exists. When there is no lender, they simply do not appear: no appraisal contingency and no appraisal gap to negotiate, no mortgage underwriting, no waiting on loan funding, and no lender-required repairs written into a commitment letter as a condition of closing. Neither does the cost that never shows up as a line item — the weeks of carrying the house while a financed buyer’s approval works its way through underwriting, and the risk that it does not survive.

The cash path is a short list: an offer, a purchase and sale agreement with a date in it, title work, an attorney closing, deed recorded and funds released. We walk through each of those in the cash home sale closing process, step by step.

None of that makes listing wrong. A market-ready house and a seller with time to wait will usually do better on price with an agent, showings and inspection negotiations included. The two paths just have different cost structures, and the honest comparison is net against net.

An illustrative example of how it stacks up

The figures below are invented for illustration — they are not market data, an estimate for your home, or an offer.

Imagine a $300,000 cash sale. The deed excise on a price like that, in most Massachusetts counties, would run in the neighborhood of fourteen hundred dollars, plus modest recording charges and any seller’s attorney fee. If the buyer absorbs the excise and the closing attorney, and the seller has a $180,000 mortgage payoff plus a few hundred dollars of prorated taxes, the seller nets close to $119,000 — with essentially nothing paid out of pocket during the process.

A listed sale at a higher price starts higher and then works downward: commission, pre-listing repairs and cleanout, a credit after the buyer’s inspection, the excise, and however many months of mortgage, taxes, insurance, and utilities pass before the closing. Sometimes it still lands ahead. Sometimes it does not. Our cash offer vs. listing with an agent piece lays the two columns side by side.

And the sentence that makes the rest of this credible: a cash offer comes in below full retail, because it prices the house as-is and carries the buyer’s costs and risk. The fair comparison is not price against price, it is net-in-pocket and certainty against net-in-pocket and certainty.

Questions that keep the net from surprising you

• Does your offer include the deed excise, or is that coming out of my side?
• Who is the closing attorney, and who pays that fee?
• Are you handling the smoke and CO certificate and, if applicable, the Title 5 inspection?
• Will I owe anything out of pocket before closing?
• Can you show me an estimated seller’s settlement statement before I sign?

That last one is the whole article in a single question. A buyer who can produce an estimated net figure early is a buyer whose number you can plan around.

This is general information about how Massachusetts closings usually work, not legal or tax advice. Capital gains treatment, probate, and anything involving liens or a payoff larger than the sale price should go to a Massachusetts real estate attorney or a qualified tax professional.

Turning the price into a number you can plan around

The useful next step is small: get a payoff quote from your servicer, check whether the property is on septic and whether taxes are current, and then ask any buyer to put the closing costs in writing next to their price. Two numbers on paper beat an estimate of either one.

New England Home Partners is a direct cash buyer and real estate investor in Massachusetts — not an agent or broker — with a 5.0-star rating and more than 230 homes purchased. We buy as-is, cover our own closing costs, and will tell you plainly when listing looks likely to net you more. If it helps to talk through your specific line items first, we are at (508) 286-7942. Otherwise you can see how our process works or request a no-obligation cash offer, typically within 24 hours, with a closing date you choose — in as few as 7 days if that suits you.