Selling and buying without an agent in Connecticut

Who runs your closing

Connecticut is an attorney state, and it is one of the few where that is written into statute rather than left to local habit. C.G.S. Section 51-88a says no person may conduct a real estate closing unless admitted as an attorney in Connecticut and not disqualified from practice. The statutory definition is wide: it covers a mortgage loan closing where a lender’s or mortgagee’s title insurance policy is issued, and separately any transaction in which consideration is paid to change the ownership of real property in the state. A cash sale with no lender still falls inside that second branch. The requirement arrived with Public Act 19-88 in 2019, and violating it counts as unauthorized practice of law.

In practice the work splits differently than it does in an escrow state. The title search and the title policy still happen the way they do anywhere else, but a lawyer conducts the closing, and it is common for each side to have its own. Your attorney as seller typically reviews or drafts the contract, drafts the deed, orders your mortgage payoff, clears what the title search turns up, prepares the conveyance tax return, attends the closing, and handles recording. Ask what the fee covers on your first call, since some flat quotes include the deed and the tax return and others do not.

For an owner selling without an agent, this is less of an obstacle than it sounds. The attorney absorbs most of the transactional work a listing broker would otherwise coordinate, so what you give up by skipping the agent is marketing, pricing, and negotiation, not the paperwork of the deal.

What you must disclose

Connecticut’s disclosure duty is set by statute. C.G.S. Section 20-327b, which the state form calls the Uniform Property Condition Disclosure Act, requires anyone offering residential property for sale to give the buyer a written residential condition report before the buyer signs any binder, contract to purchase, option, or lease containing a purchase option. The report goes out before the buyer commits, not at closing. A copy carrying the buyer’s written receipt is attached to the offer or binder, and a copy signed by both of you is attached to the purchase agreement. The statute covers residential property of one to four dwelling units, including cooperatives and condominiums, and applies whether or not a licensed broker is involved, so a sale by owner is squarely inside it. Transfers by executors, administrators, trustees, and conservators are exempt, as are newly constructed homes carrying Connecticut’s statutory implied warranty.

The form is the Department of Consumer Protection’s Residential Property Condition Report, currently the revision dated 07/2025. The Commissioner of Consumer Protection prescribes it, which is why the questions are identical statewide and why your real estate licensee cannot complete it for you. Section 20-327c adds the wrinkle Connecticut is known for: every agreement to purchase must require the seller to credit the buyer $500 at closing if the seller fails to furnish the report. Before treating that as a $500 opt-out, read the rest of it. The same section says a seller who pays the credit is still not excused from disclosing a defect within the seller’s actual knowledge that significantly impairs the value of the property, the health or safety of future occupants, or its useful life, and it gives the buyer a civil action for actual damages. The credit buys you out of the paperwork, not out of the duty. Two neighboring sections cut the other way: Section 20-327d says the report creates no new warranty and does not require you to commission inspections or tests, and Section 20-327e limits your representations to your actual knowledge.

Several questions are distinctly local. One asks whether you have any knowledge related to the presence of pyrrhotite in a foundation on the property, and the two before it ask about foundation testing by a licensed professional and about foundation repairs, with copies of those reports attached. Connecticut’s crumbling concrete foundation problem is why that cluster sits in the statute at all. The form also covers flood hazard and inland wetlands areas, dams registered with the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, underground storage tanks present or since removed, radon testing, special tax districts, and designated village or historic districts. Answer from what you know, use the unknown box where you genuinely do not know, and attach the documents the form asks for.

Transfer taxes

Connecticut does levy a transfer tax, it is called the real estate conveyance tax, and it is large enough to plan around. It comes in two parts, both paid to the town clerk when the deed is recorded, and it applies whenever the consideration equals or exceeds $2,000. The state portion is 0.75 percent for residential property. Once the consideration for a residential estate reaches $800,000 that portion becomes graduated: 0.75 percent on the first $800,000, 1.25 percent on the portion between $800,000 and $2.5 million, and 2.25 percent above $2.5 million. Every municipality also collects 0.25 percent, and towns designated as targeted investment communities or containing designated manufacturing plants may impose up to another 0.25 percent, bringing the local share to 0.5 percent there.

C.G.S. Section 12-495 makes the tax payable by the person conveying the property, so the seller writes this check. For most Connecticut homes the combined bill is 1 percent of the sale price: a $450,000 sale carries about $4,500, split as $3,375 to the state and $1,125 to the town. A $1,000,000 sale runs about $11,000 once the graduated tier applies. A return prescribed by the Commissioner of Revenue Services goes to the town clerk with the deed, and under Section 12-497 the clerk will not record the deed until that return is filed and the tax reported on it is paid. Your closing attorney normally prepares it. Confirm your own town’s rate early, since that quarter point is real money owners often forget to net out.

The bottom line for doing it yourself

Connecticut asks more of a private seller than an escrow state does. You cannot run your own closing here, and there is no version of this sale where you skip the lawyer. Budget the conveyance tax as a seller expense from the day you set your price, because roughly 1 percent of the sale price leaves your side of the table, and more than that above $800,000.

What is left is manageable. Complete the Residential Property Condition Report honestly and early, before you accept a binder rather than after, and gather any foundation, radon, or tank documentation you already have. Retain a Connecticut real estate attorney at the front of the process and let that person carry the contract, the deed, the title clearance, and the tax return. Spend your own effort where an owner adds real value: pricing the house realistically for your town, presenting it well, and dealing with buyers directly. The commission is what you are saving, and the professional layer underneath it was never optional here to begin with.