By the Mountain Cove Homes team · Miami, Florida
Closing costs on new construction in Miami-Dade are unusual among homebuying expenses in one respect: most of the large items are set by statute, so you can calculate them yourself weeks before anyone hands you a settlement statement.
That is the useful part. The three biggest tax lines are fixed rates applied to two numbers you already know — the purchase price and the loan amount.
The rest divides into fees a public schedule prices and services a market prices. This article walks the statutory lines first, because they are the ones you can verify.
What the house costs every month afterward is in the full cost of owning a home in Miami-Dade, and the sequence that leads here is in how buying pre-construction actually works. This is the day the keys change hands.
Documentary Stamp Tax on the Deed, and Why Miami-Dade Is Different
Statewide, Florida taxes deeds at 70 cents on each $100 of the consideration. Miami-Dade does not pay that rate.
The reason is a 1992 increase that a handful of counties were carved out of. The ten-cent increase in the documentary stamp tax does not apply to deeds and other taxable instruments relating to real property located in any county that has implemented the provisions of chapter 83-220, and Miami-Dade is such a county.
Seventy cents minus ten leaves sixty. The Department of Revenue states it directly: in Miami-Dade the rate is $.60 per $100 (or portion thereof) when the property is a single-family residence, per its documentary stamp tax brochure GT-800014, rev. 12/17.
On a $520,000 home that is $3,120. On $650,000 it is $3,900.
One arithmetic detail is worth carrying. The tax applies per $100 or fraction thereof, so consideration is rounded up to the next full hundred before the rate is applied. It moves the number by pennies, and it explains why your own calculation may sit a dollar below the statement.
The Surtax You Will Read About and Almost Certainly Not Pay
Search this topic and you will find a $0.45 surtax attached to Miami-Dade. It exists, and a single-family buyer does not pay it.
Miami-Dade is authorized to levy a discretionary surtax on documents taxable under the deed statute, except that there shall be no surtax on any document pursuant to which the interest granted, assigned, transferred, or conveyed involves only a single-family residence. The rate ceiling of 45 cents for each $100 or fractional part thereof of the consideration sits in a separate section.
The exemption is broader than the phrase suggests. The statute provides that the single-family residence may be a condominium unit, a unit held through stock ownership or membership representing a proprietary interest in a corporation owning a fee or a leasehold initially in excess of 98 years, or a detached dwelling.
So a detached house and a condominium unit are both outside it. If a draft settlement statement shows a $0.45 surtax on a single-family purchase, that line deserves a question before wire day.
Documentary Stamp Tax on the Mortgage
Financing carries its own stamp. On mortgages, trust deeds, security agreements or other evidences of indebtedness recorded in Florida, the tax shall be 35 cents on each $100 or fraction thereof of the indebtedness.
A $2,450 cap circulates widely in connection with this tax. It applies to the note subsection — unsecured notes and written obligations — and it does not appear in the subsection governing a recorded mortgage.
Treat a recorded purchase-money mortgage on Florida property as uncapped. On a $416,000 loan the stamp is $1,456.
The Nonrecurring Intangible Tax
Florida repealed its annual intangible tax years ago, which is why buyers sometimes assume this one is gone too. It is not.
Two mills is $2.00 per $1,000 financed. On that same $416,000 loan, $832.
It is due when the instrument is presented for recording, and the taxpayer shall be solely liable for payment of the tax but may pass on the amount of such tax to the borrower or mortgagor. In practice it lands on the buyer’s side of the statement.
Recording Fees, Which Are Small and Public
The clerk’s charges are set by statute and are the easiest line to check. For a standard-size instrument, recording is $5.00 for the first page and $4.00 for each additional page, with $1.00 per additional name where an instrument carries more than four.
The same subsection adds a Public Records Modernization charge of $1.00 for the first page and $0.50 for each additional, plus a service charge of $4.00 per page. Summed, a first page runs $10.00 and each additional page $8.50.
A deed and a mortgage are recorded separately, and a mortgage runs many pages. It is still the smallest of the government lines on the statement.
Title Insurance, Which Is Priced by Rule Rather Than by Competition
This surprises buyers who shop it. Florida sets title insurance premiums by administrative rule: the statute directs that the commission must adopt a rule specifying the premium to be charged in this state by title insurers for the respective types of title insurance contracts, and the title insurance rate rules sit in chapter 69O-186 of the Florida Administrative Code.
The consequence is worth internalizing. The premium itself does not vary by underwriter, so shopping title insurance is not shopping the premium — it is shopping the settlement and closing fees layered around it, which are not promulgated.
Who pays for the owner’s policy is not a legal question at all. No Florida statute allocates it between buyer and seller; it is a contract term, and on new construction the builder’s own form usually designates both the allocation and the title agency.
There is a second statutory guardrail on what the premium buys. Before issuing a policy, a title insurer must have made a determination of insurability based upon the evaluation of a reasonable title search, in accordance with sound underwriting practices, and must preserve that evidence for at least seven years.
One line to read carefully. A property information report is defined by statute as a report of documents or information from public records, and it may not directly or indirectly set forth or imply any opinion, warranty, guarantee, insurance, or other similar assurance and does not constitute title insurance. A settlement statement showing only a property information report has not bought you coverage.
Property Tax Prorations, and the Trap of the First Year
Prorating taxes at closing is a contract term. No Florida statute divides the year’s tax between a private buyer and seller.
Three statutory facts make the proration necessary. The first is that taxes are a first lien, superior to all other liens, on any property against which the taxes have been assessed, and continue in full force from January 1 of the year the taxes were levied — the lien attaches to the property, so it follows the house rather than the person who owned it in January.
The second is the calendar. Taxes are due November 1 and become delinquent on April 1 following the year in which they are assessed, which means a closing in the middle of the year happens between an assessment already made and a bill not yet issued.
The third is the discount ladder. Early payment earns 4 percent in the month of November, 3 percent in December, 2 percent in January, 1 percent in February, and zero percent in March, and the November window runs for thirty days after the original notice is sent rather than strictly to month end.
That ladder is worth a sentence at closing. If your lender is escrowing, ask when it intends to disburse — a payment made in March rather than November is not a penalty, but it forfeits four percent of the bill for no reason.
Now the trap specific to new construction, which is a proration problem rather than an assessment one. The figure being prorated is frequently a land-only tax, so the arithmetic is correct and the impression it leaves is not.
Prorate from what the closing statement has, and budget from what the pillar on the cost of owning a home in Miami-Dade sets out about the first two years. How the bill itself is built is in reading a Miami-Dade property tax bill, and the Florida homestead exemption changes the number again once you qualify.
Putting the Statutory Lines Together
Take a $520,000 single-family home in Miami-Dade with a $416,000 mortgage, which is twenty percent down. Every figure below comes from a rate in a statute, not from an estimate.
- Deed documentary stamps at $0.60 per $100: $3,120
- Miami-Dade discretionary surtax: none, because the conveyance involves only a single-family residence
- Mortgage documentary stamps at $0.35 per $100 of the obligation: $1,456
- Nonrecurring intangible tax at 2 mills on the obligation: $832
- Recording the deed and the mortgage at $10.00 for a first page and $8.50 for each additional page
That is roughly $5,400 in state taxes before a single service has been priced. Change the loan amount and two of the three lines move; change the purchase price and the first one moves.
What that arithmetic does not include is everything a market prices rather than a statute: settlement and closing fees, the search, the survey, the lender’s origination and appraisal charges, and prepaid items. Those belong on the same worksheet, and none of them can be computed from a public rate.
Prepaid Items Are Not Fees, They Are Your Money Moving Early
The line that inflates a closing statement most is often not a cost at all. Prepaid escrows are your own future obligations, collected in advance and held on your behalf.
Two of them are large in Miami-Dade. The first year of homeowners premium is typically collected at closing, and in a flood zone a flood premium may be collected alongside it — which is why the arithmetic in what a Florida homeowners policy covers and flood insurance in Miami-Dade belongs in your closing budget rather than after it.
The third is the tax reserve. Your lender will collect a cushion toward the next bill, sized against an estimate of what that bill will be — and on new construction that estimate is the one most likely to be wrong for the reason described above.
Read those three lines as a transfer rather than an expense. They raise the cash you need on the day without raising what the house costs you over the year.
Two Costs That Are Not on the Statement
Impact fees are the first. Miami-Dade charges mobility, fire, police, parks and educational facilities impact fees, and the county states that no building permit may be issued until all required impact fees are paid in full.
That timing is the whole point. They are paid by the builder at permit issuance, which means they are inside the purchase price rather than beside it. Under the county’s impact fee schedule effective December 31, 2023 through December 30, 2027, a single-family detached unit carries $9,633.00 in mobility fees and $3,459.68 in educational facilities fees, among others.
The full impact fee schedule runs wider than those two lines, adding fire, police and parks charges per unit. None of it appears on your settlement statement, and all of it was priced into the house before you saw the price.
The Lines a Market Prices, Not a Statute
Everything above can be checked against a public rate. The remainder cannot, and honesty about which is which is the point of reading a settlement statement at all.
The survey is the clearest example. No statute requires one on a residential purchase or fixes its price; it appears because your lender or your title underwriter asks for it, and it is worth having on new construction regardless, because it is what shows an encroachment or an easement conflict before you own the problem.
Settlement and closing fees are the second group. They sit beside a promulgated title premium and are not themselves promulgated, which makes them the part of the title line that is genuinely comparable between providers.
Lender charges are the third — origination, underwriting, appraisal, credit — and they follow the loan rather than the property. A different loan on the same house produces a different set of these.
The useful discipline is to sort the statement into three columns before you question anything: taxes fixed by statute, fees fixed by a public schedule, and services priced by whoever is providing them. Only the third column is a conversation.
Closing Costs on New Construction in Miami-Dade: Lines Worth Questioning
A $0.45 surtax line on a single-family purchase. The statute exempts detached homes and condominium units alike.
A deed stamp computed at $0.70 per $100. That is the statewide rate, not Miami-Dade’s.
A tax proration based on a land-only assessment, presented as if it forecast your first full-year bill.
A title line showing a property information report where you expected an owner’s policy.
A builder incentive described as covering “closing costs” without naming which lines. Stamps, intangible tax, title, survey and prepaid escrows are five different things.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the documentary stamp tax rate on a deed in Miami-Dade?
Sixty cents per $100 of consideration on a single-family residence, rather than the seventy-cent statewide rate, because Miami-Dade was exempted from a 1992 ten-cent increase. On a $520,000 purchase the tax is $3,120.
Do you pay the $0.45 Miami-Dade surtax on a house?
No. The statute exempts any document conveying an interest that involves only a single-family residence, and it defines that term to include a detached dwelling and a condominium unit.
How much is the intangible tax on a Florida mortgage?
Two mills, or $2.00 per $1,000 of the obligation secured by the mortgage. It is a one-time tax due when the instrument is presented for recording.
Is documentary stamp tax on a mortgage capped in Florida?
The $2,450 cap sits in the subsection covering notes and written obligations, not in the subsection covering mortgages recorded in Florida. Treat a recorded purchase-money mortgage as uncapped at thirty-five cents per $100.
Can you shop for a lower title insurance premium in Florida?
Not the premium itself, which is set by administrative rule and does not vary by underwriter. Settlement, closing and search-related fees are not promulgated and do vary.
Do you pay Miami-Dade impact fees at closing?
No. The county requires impact fees to be paid in full before a building permit is issued, so they are a builder cost at permitting and are reflected in the purchase price rather than appearing as a settlement line.
Every statutory line on a Miami-Dade closing statement can be computed from two numbers and a public rate. Do that arithmetic a month early, and the only surprises left are the ones worth asking about.
About Mountain Cove Homes. Mountain Cove Homes is a boutique home builder based in Miami, Florida, building single-family homes and townhomes in small communities across Miami-Dade County — including Golden Park and other communities currently selling. Its personnel have been constructing homes in South Florida since the early 1980s. More about how the company works and where it builds.
This article is general information about property taxes, insurance and community assessments in Florida. It is not tax, legal, insurance or mortgage advice. Figures and statutes change, and the amounts that apply to a specific property depend on that property. Confirm your own figures with your closing agent, your lender and the Miami-Dade Tax Collector before relying on any of them.
For additional legal disclaimers please see the legal information document.
Talk to Mountain Cove Homes
Mountain Cove Homes is a boutique home builder in Miami, Florida, building single-family homes and townhomes in small communities across Miami-Dade County — most of them with no HOA and no CDD tax. If you want to walk through lot availability, pricing, and what is included at this stage of construction, we will give you the numbers directly.
Office 4878 Southwest 74th Court, Miami, FL 33155 786.458.1805 [email protected]
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