I had given a client a real estate quote for transferring title from the spouse’s sole name into joint names. I was surprised when the client said that another firm had quoted twice as much for Land Titles transfer fees.
When transferring title and one of the names on title remains the same, Land Titles will usually charge half the standard fee. This happens often when parties seperate and one spouse comes off the title and the other remains. Another example is when one person is on title and adds the spouse, for example to qualify for a higher mortgage amount on a refinance.
This does not apply to an application to transfer to surviving joint tenants because the fees for that are already greatly reduced.
David R. Barth
Barth Law Prof Corp. 