South Africa
Property & Renting Calculators for South Africa
The cash side of buying and renting — transfer duty band by band, attorney fees separated from disbursements, and the deposit interest most tenants never think to claim.
2 calculators in this category
The number that catches buyers out is not the deposit
Almost every South African property calculator answers the question people ask, which is what the bond repayment will be. Far fewer answer the question that actually derails purchases, which is how much cash is needed on transfer day.
Transfer duty, conveyancing fees, bond registration and deeds office charges together run from about 4% of the price at the bottom of the market to nearly 8% higher up, and none of it can be added to the bond. A buyer who saved exactly the 10% deposit cannot complete. These pages put that figure in front of you before the offer is signed rather than after.
Rights that only work if you know about them
The Rental Housing Act obliges a landlord to invest a deposit in an interest-bearing account and to pay the interest to the tenant. It also gives the tenant a right to demand written proof of what the account earned.
On a three-year tenancy that interest is worth more than a fifth of the original deposit, and it is very rarely paid without being asked for. Publishing the arithmetic, with the section of the Act named alongside it, is the point of the tool.