What the Registry Charges to Record Your Closing

The recording charges on a Massachusetts closing statement have a set price. The Secretary of the Commonwealth publishes them as a table, and the table’s one footnote says the prices include all surcharges.

The schedule

A deed costs $155 to record. A mortgage costs $205. A mortgage discharge, release or partial release costs $105, and the schedule charges the same $105 for anything it files under all other documents and for a plan per sheet. A declaration of homestead is $35, a declaration of trust is $255, a municipal lien certificate is $80, UCC documents are $75, and certified copies run $1 a page. The table carries one footnote: the prices include all surcharges.

Where the surcharge goes

The schedule’s prices fold in a surcharge that M.G.L. c. 44B, § 8 lays on top of the register’s recording fee, which M.G.L. c. 262, § 38 sets for most documents. The surcharge is $50 on a recorded document and $25 on a municipal lien certificate, and § 8 says it goes to the Massachusetts Community Preservation Trust Fund. The section also says no surcharge applies to a declaration of homestead under chapter 188. Under the same section, a document that carries multiple references to another instrument it is trying to assign, discharge, release, partially release, subordinate or notice gets each reference separately indexed and separately assessed an additional $50 surcharge.

What goes on record at a purchase

The deed goes on record, since it puts your name on the property. If a lender is funding the purchase, the mortgage goes on with it. The seller’s old mortgage comes off through a recorded discharge. Add a declaration of homestead if you file one, and a municipal lien certificate when the closing needs one. Each of those shows up as its own line on the statement.

The municipal lien certificate

It’s the tax collector’s written statement of what constitutes a lien on the parcel: taxes, assessments, water rates and charges, and charges due to a municipal lighting plant. Under M.G.L. c. 60, § 23 a city, or a town with more than five thousand inhabitants, must furnish it within ten days of a written application, not counting weekends and holidays. A town of five thousand or fewer gets twenty days. The collector charges $25 for issuing it, which is separate from the $80 the registry charges to record it. A certificate filed for record within one hundred and fifty days after its date operates to discharge the parcel from those liens that don’t appear on it, subject to the exceptions the section lists, including where a taking or sale by the municipality has already been recorded.

Who pays which line

The fee schedule sets the price of each line, and your purchase and sale agreement says who pays it. Ask your closing attorney to walk the recording lines with you when the statement comes over, along with the deeds excise, which is a separate charge outside this schedule. If you’re buying in Greater Boston this fall, send me the statement when you get it and I’ll read it with you. Diana Kim, REALTOR®, eXp Realty.