For agents
What your seller actually walks away with
Sale price, minus the payoff, minus the cost of selling. South Carolina fixes two of those costs by statute and this sheet computes them: the deed recording fee, and the income tax withheld from a seller who is not a resident. Everything else comes from the file, so it is asked for by name and left blank until you have it. Nothing to sign up for.
Leave a line blank if you do not have the figure. It stays on the sheet as a blank and the net is marked provisional, which is the truthful version of the number. Type 0 where the answer is none.
Common questions
What does a seller net sheet include?
Sale price, minus what is owed on the house, minus the cost of selling. In South Carolina the cost of selling is the compensation the seller agreed to, the closing attorney’s seller-side fee, the deed recording fee the state charges on the deed, the seller’s share of the year’s property taxes, any association charges, and repairs or concessions from the contract. If the seller is not a South Carolina resident, income tax is withheld from the proceeds at closing as well.
Is the mortgage payoff the same as the balance on the statement?
No. Interest accrues to the day the loan is actually paid, so the payoff figure is higher than the statement balance, and the payoff quote usually carries the release recording charge. Ask the servicer for a payoff quote dated for the expected closing and use that. The escrow balance is separate: the servicer returns it after the payoff, usually within thirty days, so it is shown on this sheet but kept out of the net.
What does South Carolina charge a seller on a deed?
A deed recording fee, set by statute at a fixed amount for every five hundred dollars of the price or fraction of one, split between the state and the county. By statute it is the grantor’s liability, which is the seller. The sheet computes the exact figure from the sale price and shows the state and county shares. The contract can shift it, but the default is the seller’s.
What is nonresident seller withholding in South Carolina?
When the seller is not a South Carolina resident, the buyer is required to withhold South Carolina income tax from the proceeds at closing and remit it on Form I-290 by the fifteenth of the following month. The rate is the state’s top individual income tax rate for the year of sale, or 5% for a corporation, applied to the gain if the seller provides an I-295 affidavit of gain and otherwise to the amount realized. It is a prepayment of the seller’s income tax, credited on their South Carolina return, with any excess refunded, but it is real money that does not arrive at the table.
Why does the sheet leave commission blank instead of using a typical rate?
Because there is no typical rate. Compensation is negotiated between the seller and the agent, it changed materially in 2024, and any figure a website puts in that box is a claim about what agents charge. The sheet takes the number from the executed listing agreement and nowhere else.
Why is the net marked provisional?
Because one or more lines have no figure yet. Every blank line stays on the sheet with a note saying what it is waiting on, and the net shown is the net before those lines. A sheet that quietly treats an unknown attorney fee as zero produces a confident number that is wrong; this one shows you the number and tells you what is missing from it.
The buyer’s side of the same table is the closing cost estimator for agents. For a seller who is also buying, the move-up math is the number this sheet feeds.