What The Hive Law Charges for a Transfer on Death Deed
The Hive Law charges $550 to prepare a Transfer on Death Deed for a Georgia property. This is one flat fee. It is not an hourly bill. You know the full cost before any work starts.
That fee is for one property. A TOD deed only covers the one piece of real estate named on it. If you own more than one property, talk to an attorney about your options. You may want a deed on each property, or a revocable living trust instead.
What a Georgia TOD Deed Has to Get Right
A TOD deed has to fit the plan you already have. It should not clash with a will, a trust, or another form you already signed.
The deed itself has to meet every rule in Georgia’s TOD deed law, O.C.G.A. ยง 44-17-2. A deed can be missing just one small thing, like the correct legal description. If it is, the deed may not work the way you expect. This is true even if you signed it in front of a notary.
Signing is not the last step. The deed has to be recorded with the clerk of superior court in the county where the property is. That has to happen before you die.
Georgia’s Recording Fee Is a Separate, Much Smaller Cost
Georgia charges a fee to record any deed. TOD deeds are no different. That fee is one flat amount, set by state law, however many pages the deed runs. It is separate from the $550 attorney fee.
This small recording fee is what most people mean when they ask how much it costs to file a TOD deed. But that is not the same question as how much it costs to get a TOD deed done right. The recording fee only pays to stamp the paper into the record. It says nothing about whether your deed is valid, or whether it is even the right tool for your family.
What Online Deed Services Charge, and What They Don’t Do
A few online services will fill out a Georgia TOD deed for $249 to $395. You type your information into a web form. They drop it into a template.
What they will not do is look at your full picture. They will not tell you if a trust should hold this property instead. They will not warn you what happens if your chosen heir dies before you do.
If you skip a paid service and file it yourself, the real floor cost is just Georgia’s county recording fee. That is one flat amount, however long the deed is. Add whatever a notary charges to witness your signature. What that leaves out is the same thing an online template leaves out. No one checks whether the deed is valid. No one checks whether it fits your actual plan.
When a TOD Deed Is the Right Tool for the Price
A TOD deed fits a simple case well. Say you own one property. You want it to go to one person, or a few people you can name by name. You do not have a funded trust yet. In that case, a $550 TOD deed can move that property around probate for a fraction of what a full trust costs.
It also works well as a quick add-on. Someone with a will but no trust can add a TOD deed just for the house. They do not have to rebuild their whole plan to do it.
A TOD deed also comes with a tax advantage a lifetime gift does not. Your beneficiary inherits with a stepped-up tax basis. If they ever sell, they generally owe far less in capital gains tax. That is less than if you had simply given them the house while you were alive. See Problems with Transfer on Death Deeds in Georgia for the full tax picture.
When a TOD Deed Costs Your Family More Than It Saves
A TOD deed only works if your named heir actually finishes the process. If your beneficiary dies before you do, the deed does nothing. The property does not go to anyone else on its own.
Georgia removed the old 9-month deadline. This applies to deaths on or after July 1, 2026. There is no longer a set deadline your beneficiary has to beat. But the transfer is still not done until they sign and record the paperwork. Until they do, the property sits in an unclear state. That can make a later sale or refinance harder. Georgia law now also requires something new. The estate’s personal representative must tell each named beneficiary the deed exists. This happens once someone is formally appointed to that role.
If the transfer never gets finished, this can happen. The property ends up back in the same probate process a TOD deed is supposed to avoid.
- Cost: Georgia probate costs around $14,700 for a simple estate. It costs more for a contested one.
- Timeline: Probate usually takes about 13 months on average. It can take longer for a contested one.
- Control: Your family cannot sell the house until it has been put into their own names at the end of probate.
For a fuller list of ways a TOD deed can leave your family exposed, see Problems with Transfer on Death Deeds in Georgia.
A TOD deed also does nothing if you lose the ability to manage your own affairs before you die. If that happens, your family would need court approval just to manage the property for you. A funded trust avoids that extra cost and delay on its own.
How a TOD Deed’s Cost Compares to a Revocable Trust
A revocable living trust at The Hive Law starts at $3,500. That is several times the cost of one TOD deed. The higher price buys more. A trust covers every asset you place in it, not just one property. It also protects you automatically if you lose the ability to manage your own affairs, which a TOD deed cannot do.
Want the full comparison? See Transfer on Death Deed vs. Revocable Trust in Georgia for a side-by-side look at cost and coverage.
Do you own your property with someone else already? A TOD deed works differently on jointly owned property than a trust does. JTWROS vs. TOD Deed in Georgia walks through how the two compare when more than one name is on the title.
What Makes the Total Cost Go Up
The $550 fee is for a standard TOD deed on one Georgia property. A few things can add cost. A title with an old error or an unresolved lien is one. A property owned by a trust or an LLC, instead of a person, is another. A messy legal description that has to be pulled from county records is a third. We will tell you before any work starts if your case is one of these.
What to Do Next
A Transfer on Death Deed is one of the fastest, cheapest ways to keep a Georgia property out of probate. But it is not the only tool, and it is not right for every family. Talk to our team about your property. We will tell you honestly whether a $550 TOD deed, a broader estate plan, or a mix of both fits what you actually need.
