The first question most Langley sellers ask is what the sale will cost them. The calculators online are mostly wrong, not because the arithmetic is bad, but because they count commission and legal fees and stop. The pages ranking for this question quote 5 to 8 per cent of the price, a range wide enough to be useless.
The short answer
Budget roughly 3 to 4 per cent if you own the home outright and it is your principal residence. With a mortgage still running, that range moves a long way. The mortgage is the biggest variable and the one almost nobody accounts for.
Commission, and why nobody can quote you a standard rate
BC has no set commission. Asked directly whether there is a standard rate, the BC Financial Services Authority answers no, and says "any commission amount can be negotiated between you, your real estate professional and brokerage." Anyone who tells you the rate is fixed by a board or a regulator is wrong.
What exists is a convention: a higher percentage on the first $100,000 of the price and a lower percentage on the balance, split between the listing brokerage and the one that brings the buyer. When an offer comes in, your agent has to give you a Disclosure to Seller of Expected Remuneration form, which converts your contract percentage into a real number. BCFSA notes it leaves out legal fees.
GST applies to the commission, and the PST expansion is paused
BC charges 5 per cent GST and no HST. It lands on the commission, because commission is a service, not on the sale price of a used home. Resale residential housing is GST exempt. New construction and substantially renovated homes are different, so get tax advice if that describes your property.
Worth checking if you read about this earlier in the year. Budget 2026 put PST at 7 per cent on a list of professional services from October 1, 2026, and real estate was on it. Two details matter. It covered non-residential real estate services, meaning trading, rental property management and strata management, so an ordinary house sale was never in scope. And on September 18, 2026 the province paused the expansion altogether.
Conveyancing, and the fee people mix up
A lawyer or notary handles the paperwork and the money. Conveyancing is quoted per file, so get one in writing. The ranges online are usually somebody's old invoice.
One piece is fixed and public. Cancelling a charge on title at the Land Title Office, which is what discharging your mortgage is, costs $33.53 under the LTSA fee listing as at April 1, 2026, charged per action. A mortgage and a secured line of credit both registered means two cancellations. That $33.53 is not your lender's discharge fee, a separate item, and conflating the two is why online figures for a discharge run from thirty dollars to several hundred.
Your mortgage is the wild card
Break a closed mortgage before the end of its term and you normally pay a prepayment penalty. The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada is blunt that the fee can cost thousands of dollars.
How it is worked out is the part to understand. FCAC says the penalty is usually the higher of three months' interest on the balance, or an interest rate differential comparing your contract rate against what your lender charges today. On FCAC's own example the differential came to four times the three month figure. The Bank of Canada's target rate has sat at 2.25 per cent since October 30, 2025, so anyone carrying a rate signed in 2023 or 2024 is the seller that formula punishes.
FCAC also lists administration, appraisal and reinvestment fees, a discharge fee, and repaying any cash back you took at signing. Phone your lender for the payout figure in writing before you set a list price, and ask about porting too.
Adjustments at completion
These are not costs so much as a settling up, and they run both ways. Township of Langley property taxes were due July 2, 2026 and cover the full calendar year, with a 5 per cent penalty after that date and another after September 3. Pay them and complete in the fall, and the buyer reimburses you for their share. Sell before the bill is paid and it reverses, as do strata fees.
The taxes most sellers do not pay, and some do
The BC home flipping tax applies if you owned the property less than 730 days. Within 365 days the rate is 20 per cent of the net taxable income from the sale, then it winds down on a set formula, so a sale at 398 days works out to 18.192 per cent, and at 730 days it is gone. A deduction of up to $20,000 is available if you owned the home at least 365 consecutive days as your primary residence. The return is due within 90 days.
Capital gains usually do not apply to a principal residence, but the reporting does. For 2016 and later tax years the CRA allows the exemption only if you report the disposition on Schedule 3, and from 2017 onward Form T2091(IND) comes with it, even when the gain is fully exempt. If the home was a rental for part of your ownership, involve an accountant early.
If you are not a resident of Canada for tax purposes, the buyer is entitled to withhold 25 per cent of the purchase price unless you obtain a CRA certificate of compliance. You notify the CRA on Form T2062 within ten days of the disposition. Late notification costs $25 a day, minimum $100, maximum $2,500.
What sellers in BC do not pay
Property transfer tax. It comes up in almost every listing appointment and it is a buyer cost, set out in what BC property transfer tax actually costs.
One part is worth getting right, because buyers quote it at you. The first time buyer exemption removes the tax on the first $500,000 of the price, which caps the benefit at $8,000. It is not a full exemption up to the threshold. A buyer needs a fair market value of $835,000 or less to claim it at all, with a partial exemption to $860,000. At $835,000 the tax is $14,700 and the exemption covers $8,000, so your buyer still writes a cheque for $6,700. The benchmark detached home in the Langley real estate market is $1.471M, well past that ceiling, so on a house the tax lands in full and shapes what a buyer can offer.
The cost of time
Staging, paint and repairs are real money and within your control. Photography, video and paid placement should not be, because that is what a listing brokerage provides. Then there is time, which never appears on a statement. In September 2026 a detached home in the Fraser Valley took 45 days on average to sell, a townhome 38 and a condo 46. Add the stretch to completion and you carry the place for roughly three months.
A worked example on a real Langley number
The median price of a detached home sold in Langley in September 2026 was $1.345M, per the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board's September package. The benchmark, which tracks a typical home rather than whatever traded, was $1.471M, down 6.7 per cent from September 2025. Townhomes benchmarked at $802,600, apartments at $525,900. Segment detail is in the Langley market update for September 2026.
Run the graduated commission convention against $1.345M. That is $7,000 on the first $100,000 and $31,125 on the balance, so $38,125 in commission, plus $1,906.25 in GST. Call it $40,031, or just under 3 per cent of the sale price. That is the common structure. It is not a quote, and it is the part of this list you can negotiate.
Add conveyancing, $33.53 per charge cancelled, your lender's discharge fee, your payout penalty if there is one, and the cost of getting the place ready. For a mortgage free principal residence the total lands near 3 per cent. With three years left on a fixed term signed much higher, it can be close to double. If the home is tenanted, read selling a tenanted property in BC first, because the notice dates move completion.
Three calls before you list
In this order. Your lender, for the payout figure in writing. A lawyer or notary, for a conveyancing quote. Then an agent, and ask what marketing is included before you sign. You can see how I market homes and start with what your Langley home is worth.
Sources
Updated October 23, 2026. FVREB September 2026 statistics package, released October 5, 2026. BCFSA Consumer Guide to Remuneration. Province of BC on the home flipping tax, the first time home buyers' exemption and PST Notice 2026-001. LTSA fee listing. FCAC on breaking a mortgage contract. CRA on principal residence reporting and non-resident dispositions. Bank of Canada. Township of Langley.