The costs of buying a home in Ireland beyond the deposit

The deposit is the biggest number you’ll face when buying a home, but it isn’t the last one. Between the moment your offer is accepted and the day you get the keys, several other costs fall due: stamp duty to Revenue, your solicitor’s fees for the legal work, a valuation the lender insists on, and the insurance you cannot draw down the mortgage without. None of these can come out of the loan. They have to be paid from your own money, on top of the deposit, and mostly within the same few weeks. Buyers who budget only for the deposit discover the rest at the worst possible moment — when the purchase is already in motion.

Stamp duty

Stamp duty is a tax you pay to Revenue on the purchase price of the property. For residential homes, the rates in effect since 2 October 2024 (current as of this page’s review, source: Revenue) work in tiers, so the higher rate applies only to the portion of the price above each threshold, not to the whole price:

• 1% on the price up to €1 million
• 2% on any portion between €1 million and €1.5 million
• 6% on any portion above €1.5 million

For most homes the calculation is straightforward, because the whole price sits inside the first tier. A few worked examples show how it lands:

Purchase price	Stamp duty
€350,000	€3,500
€500,000	€5,000
€750,000	€7,500
€1,200,000	€14,000

The €1,200,000 example shows the tiers in action: 1% of the first €1,000,000 (€10,000) plus 2% of the remaining €200,000 (€4,000), giving €14,000. Below €1 million the sum is simply 1% of the price.

Your solicitor usually handles the filing and pays the duty over to Revenue as part of completing the purchase, so you won’t file it yourself — but you do need the cash ready, because it forms part of the money that changes hands on the day.

Legal fees and conveyancing

Buying a home means transferring legal ownership from the seller to you, and that process — conveyancing — is done by a solicitor. Their job is to check the seller genuinely owns what they’re selling, examine the title for anything that would limit your ownership, raise and review the pre-contract enquiries, handle the contracts, register you as the new owner, and manage the money moving between the parties and the lender.

Solicitors’ fees for a purchase vary from firm to firm and are quoted by the firm you choose, often as a set fee plus outlays for things like searches and registration. Ask for the full quote in writing before you engage anyone, so the total is a known number rather than a surprise near completion.

Valuation and survey

Before it releases the mortgage, your lender requires a valuation of the property. This is not for your benefit — it confirms to the lender that the home is worth roughly what you’re paying, so its loan is secured against something of adequate value. It’s a quick assessment of market value, not an inspection of the building’s condition.

A structural survey is a different thing entirely, and worth keeping separate in your mind. A survey is commissioned by you, for you, to find problems the valuation would never flag — damp, subsidence, a roof near the end of its life, work done without proper certification. The lender doesn’t require it, which is exactly why it’s easy to skip; but it’s the only part of the process that exists purely to protect the buyer, and once you own the house its problems become yours.

Insurance you’ll need

Two kinds of insurance sit between you and drawdown, and both are effectively non-negotiable.

The first is mortgage protection insurance. Irish law generally requires lenders to make sure a borrower has mortgage protection insurance — a policy that clears the remaining mortgage balance if the borrower dies — before giving a mortgage on a home, with limited exceptions, for example some borrowers over 50 (source: CCPC). It is distinct from ordinary life insurance and from payment protection insurance: its single purpose is to pay off what’s left of the home loan so the property isn’t lost if the borrower dies during the term. Because it’s generally required before drawdown, it needs to be in place in time, not left until the last week.

The second is home insurance, which lenders require as a condition of the mortgage. It covers the building itself against events like fire and flooding — the lender wants the asset its loan is secured against protected — and, like mortgage protection, it must be arranged before the money is released.

Budgeting it honestly

Set next to the deposit, each of these costs is small. Together they still add up, and the harder truth is the timing: they nearly all fall due around the same short window near completion, and every one of them sits outside the loan. The mortgage covers the property. It does not cover the tax, the legal work, the valuation, or the premiums. Those come from savings you’ve kept back for the purpose.

The honest way to budget, then, is to treat these as a second pot alongside the deposit rather than an afterthought — the deposit rules set the size of the big number, and this page covers what lands on top of it. Nothing here is advice on your own purchase; a solicitor handles the legal decisions, and your lender and insurer confirm what they require in your specific case.