Last updated September 21, 2026 · Written by Meredith Sherwood, TREC License No. 0832882
Texas closings have quirks that surprise sellers who have sold elsewhere: the state sets title insurance prices, there is normally no attorney, and the property tax line is frequently larger than every other closing cost combined. Here is each item, with where the number comes from.
Title insurance — the state sets the price, so shopping cannot lower it
Texas is one of a small number of states where title insurance premiums are set by government rather than by the insurer. Under the Texas Insurance Code the Commissioner of Insurance must fix and promulgate the premium rates, through a public hearing process, and the result is adopted into the state’s title insurance manual.
The practical consequence is worth knowing: the title premium is identical at every title company in Texas. The Texas Department of Insurance says so plainly — all title companies charge the same premium for a policy, because the rate is set by TDI. Comparing title companies on premium is wasted effort.
Rates dropped 6.2% in March 2026
This is recent enough that most calculators and worksheets still have the old numbers. The Commissioner signed an order in December 2025 reducing title insurance basic premium rates by 6.2%, effective March 1, 2026. The prior schedule had stood since September 2019.
Current owner’s policy premiums, from the promulgated rate table:
| Sale price | Owner’s policy premium | As % of price | Saved vs. the old schedule |
|---|---|---|---|
| $400,000 | $2,262 | 0.57% | $151 |
| $500,000 | $2,756 | 0.55% | $184 |
| $600,000 | $3,250 | 0.54% | $217 |
| $750,000 | $3,991 | 0.53% | $266 |
| $1,000,000 | $5,226 | 0.52% | $349 |
Notice the curve is regressive — the premium is a shrinking percentage as the price rises, which cuts against the assumption that closing costs scale evenly.
Who pays it: in Texas the seller customarily furnishes the owner’s policy, and that is the standard practice in this market. But the contract presents it as a checkbox for either party, so it is negotiable by design rather than required.
There is also a small statutory add-on, the policy guaranty fee, collected on each policy. It has been $2 per policy and rises to $3 effective October 1, 2026.
Escrow fee — this one you can shop
The escrow or closing fee is what the title company charges to actually handle the transaction. Unlike the premium, it is not rate-regulated. TDI is explicit that you can shop around for cheaper escrow fees and closing costs, because these differ between agents.
On the standard TREC contract, the escrow fee is split 50/50 between buyer and seller by default. That is the form’s printed starting point, not a rule.
On the dollar amount, honesty is more useful than false precision: DFW title companies do not generally publish fee schedules, so a specific local figure cannot be sourced. Expect a flat fee in the low hundreds, with your half being some part of that. Ask your title company for their schedule in writing — it is a reasonable request and they will provide it.
Several Texas closing-cost articles state that escrow fees run 1% to 2% of the purchase price. On a $500,000 sale that would imply a $5,000 to $10,000 escrow fee. Texas residential escrow fees are flat fees in the hundreds. That percentage appears to be imported from a different state’s pricing conventions, and it is wrong.
Survey — most Texas sellers never buy one
This surprises people. The standard contract gives three options, and the common path is that the seller furnishes the existing survey along with either a T-47 Affidavit or a T-47.1 Declaration. With that in hand, the title company can generally delete the survey exception without a new survey being bought.
The two instruments differ in one practical way. The T-47 requires notarization — it contains a notary block and is sworn. The T-47.1 is a declaration in lieu of affidavit, made under penalty of perjury under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 132.001, and carries no notary block at all. The substantive content is otherwise the same. Both took effect November 1, 2024, and the contract now names both.
What the form asks you to declare is the operative part: that since the survey date there has been no construction, no fence or wall relocation, no construction along adjoining boundaries, and no conveyances, replats or easements. If any of those happened, your old survey may not work.
The exposure sellers miss: under this option, if you fail to furnish both the survey and the declaration, the buyer obtains a new survey at your expense. And if the title company or lender rejects your existing survey, who pays for the replacement is another negotiated checkbox. “I have a survey, so I am fine” is not quite true.
On what a new survey costs in DFW: no local surveying firm publishes rates, and the dollar figures circulating online come from lead-generation directories rather than surveyors. Get an actual quote rather than trusting a published range.
HOA fees — and the trap in the addendum
If your property is in a mandatory homeowners association, two separate charges are in play, and sellers routinely conflate them.
The resale certificate / subdivision information is capped by statute. Texas Property Code section 207.003 limits an association to $375 for a resale certificate and $75 for an updated one. Whether the seller or buyer pays for it is a checkbox on the property owners association addendum.
Transfer fees are a different animal, and they are not capped. Here is the trap, and it is the item most worth knowing on this page. The addendum reads, in substance, that the buyer pays association transfer fees, deposits, reserves and related charges not to exceed a blank filled in on the form — and the seller pays any excess.
So that blank caps the buyer’s exposure, and every dollar above it lands on you. In master-planned Denton County communities, transfer and capital-contribution charges can run well beyond what someone would casually write into that blank. A seller who lets a buyer fill in a low number against considerably higher real charges has just bought the difference.
What to do: get your association’s actual transfer costs in writing before that number is negotiated, and make sure the figure in the contract covers them. Regular periodic dues are handled separately, prorated like taxes.
Property tax proration — usually the biggest line here
This is the one that produces the “where did my money go” reaction at the closing table, and it is not a fee at all.
The mechanics, from the statutes: a tax lien attaches to the property on January 1 each year to secure that year’s taxes. Rates are not adopted until late summer. Bills are mailed by around October 1, and taxes are delinquent if not paid before February 1 of the following year.
So at a mid-year closing you have owned the home through months of a tax year that nobody has paid and for which no bill yet exists. The contract prorates taxes through the closing date, which means you credit the buyer for January 1 to closing, and they pay the full bill in January.
Why it is so large in Texas
Texas has no state income tax and funds local government through property taxes that are high by national standards. Rates are set per $100 of taxable value by each entity separately — county, city, school district, and sometimes a municipal utility or emergency services district on top.
To make that concrete for one specific location: a home inside the City of Denton and Denton ISD faces the Denton County rate of $0.185938, the City of Denton rate of $0.595420, and the Denton ISD rate of $1.1922 — summing to roughly $1.97 per $100 of taxable value, about 1.97%.
Two caveats that matter. Those adopted rates span different tax years, and the total excludes any municipal utility district, emergency services district or other special district, which vary enormously across Denton County. It is the combined rate for that named combination of entities, not a countywide average — there is no official published countywide effective rate, and figures presented as one are third-party estimates.
At a rate near 2%, a mid-year closing on a mid-range Denton County home puts the proration credit in the thousands — routinely more than title, escrow, survey and HOA costs combined. Look up your own entities and run your own number.
Two things sellers do not expect
- Your exemptions may not carry. The proration can be calculated taking into account changes in exemptions affecting the current year. If you hold a homestead exemption the buyer will not qualify for, you can be credited against a materially larger bill than the one you have been paying.
- It is not final at closing. If actual taxes differ from the estimate used, the contract requires the parties to adjust once statements are available. A true-up months later is normal.
Deed, lien releases and recording — smaller than you think
The standard contract assigns the seller: releases of existing liens including prepayment penalties and recording fees, release of the seller’s loan liability, tax statements or certificates, preparation of the deed, and half the escrow fee.
The county piece is genuinely small. Denton County charges $25 for the first page of a real property record and $4 for each additional page. A typical deed or lien release runs a few pages, so a seller with one mortgage to release is generally looking at roughly $30 to $75 in county recording fees.
Deed preparation is separate and is not a county fee. It is drafted by an attorney rather than the title company, because Texas Government Code section 83.001 bars charging for the preparation of instruments affecting title unless you are a licensed attorney or a broker acting within their license. Expect a few hundred dollars, plus a similar order for a tax certificate.
Attorney fees — normally zero
A standard Texas residential resale closes with no attorney and no attorney fee. Closings are handled by a title company’s escrow officer, whose duties — defined in the Insurance Code — include determining proper execution and delivery of the conveyance documents, confirming taxes are paid and prorated, disbursing proceeds and filing papers for record. The same chapter contemplates closings performed without an attorney explicitly.
The structural reason is the promulgated forms. TREC adopts contract forms drafted by a broker-lawyer committee, and license holders are required to use them, so agents fill in blanks on state-adopted documents rather than drafting legal language. That is also why deed preparation routes to an outside attorney.
You may still want counsel — an estate, a divorce, a partition, or a complicated title issue — and that is a separate, variable cost.
Putting it together
For the full picture with a worked example, see what it costs to sell a house in Texas. For the commission side specifically, including what changed in 2024 and the contract paragraph that moved in July 2026, see what agents actually charge.
For your own numbers — your price, your tax entities, your HOA, your loan balance — send the address and Meredith will build a net sheet alongside the valuation. Free, and no obligation. Or call 806-781-7464.
Title premiums are the promulgated rates effective March 1, 2026. Tax rates are the adopted rates for the named entities and span different tax years. Contract references are to the TREC forms effective July 1, 2026. Statutory caps are cited to the code. All of these change — this page carries its last-reviewed date above, and anything you are relying on for a live transaction should be confirmed with your title company.