This tool provides general cost estimates for informational purposes only. It is NOT legal advice. Costs vary significantly based on individual circumstances. Consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for specific guidance.
2026 cost estimates for real estate closing in North Dakota, including attorney fees, court costs, and other expenses.
As of June 29, 2026, a real estate closing in North Dakota costs on average $1,950, typically $1,350-$2,700 for a moderate-complexity case, based on sourced attorney-fee and court-cost data. Typical attorney rates run $145 to $270 per hour. A moderate-complexity case typically takes 1-3 months to resolve. Common related costs include title search fee ($200-$400) and title insurance ($500-$2,000).
Data verified: June 29, 2026
| Complexity | Low | Median | High | Typical Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simple | $400 | $750 | $1,100 | 2-4 weeks |
| Moderate | $1,350 | $1,950 | $2,700 | 1-3 months |
| Complex | $2,550 | $3,850 | $6,000 | 3-6 months |
Last verified: June 2026
$145 – $270/ hour
Median: $210/hr
1-3 months
For moderate complexity cases
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</script>Real estate closing legal costs form mainly around whether the transaction is a standard residential purchase or one complicated by title problems, a short sale, new construction, or commercial elements. In a simple closing, the attorney's role is largely contract review, title coordination, and attending closing itself, which supports flat-fee pricing. Complications — a title defect that needs curing, a dispute between buyer and seller, or financing contingencies falling through — shift the engagement to hourly billing and add attorney hours.
Attorney fees are only one line item inside total closing costs. Title search and title insurance, appraisal, recording fees, and any survey costs are set largely by the transaction's price and the title company or county, not by which attorney is hired. Attorneys in some states are required participants at closing while in others their involvement is optional but still commonly used to review the purchase contract before signing.
Take a moderate-complexity real estate closing matter in North Dakota. The recorded median total is $1,950, with reported quotes clustering between $1,350 and $2,700. Each statutory line below is sized against that median.
Added together the itemised lines come to $1,050–$3,350, which leaves roughly $0–$900 of the North Dakota median as professional time — the part that differs between quotes. One further recorded fee is not itemised above and is not in that total.
At $1,950, the median real estate closing cost in North Dakota runs 10% below the $2,155 national average across all 50 states and DC.
North Dakota carries 3 rows — simple, $400–$1,100 at $125–$230/hr over 2-4 weeks; moderate, $1,350–$2,700 at $145–$270/hr over 1-3 months; complex, $2,550–$6,000 at $190–$355/hr over 3-6 months — on 4 shared citations. They put it below the midpoint of the table without reaching the bottom quarter.
$1,950 is a median, not the middle of the band — $600 above the $1,350 floor, $750 under the $2,700 ceiling. Every rank below is out of 46.
North Dakota occupies the 31st row of 46 for a real estate closing. Its $1,950 median trails the $2,225 table midpoint by $275, which is 12% — close enough that a single firm's quote can straddle both figures.
Montana ($1,950) and West Virginia ($1,950) bracket North Dakota inside a $0 window — narrow enough that 31st is close to arbitrary.
6 tracked states — Florida, Montana, West Virginia, Georgia among them — record a median within three percent of North Dakota's $1,950. The figure sits in the densest part of the real estate closing distribution, where a rank change of several rows costs only a few hundred dollars.
On hourly rate alone North Dakota is 36th of 46 at $210 an hour, 5 places behind its 31st position on total cost.
| Rank | State | Median | Against North Dakota |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | Indiana | $2,150 | +$200 |
| 26 | Wyoming | $2,150 | +$200 |
| 27 | Tennessee | $2,100 | +$150 |
| 28 | Arizona | $2,050 | +$100 |
| 29 | Florida | $1,950 | −$0 |
| 30 | Montana | $1,950 | −$0 |
| 31 | North Dakota | $1,950 | — |
| 32 | West Virginia | $1,950 | −$0 |
| 33 | Georgia | $1,900 | −$50 |
| 34 | Mississippi | $1,900 | −$50 |
| 35 | Ohio | $1,900 | −$50 |
| 36 | North Carolina | $1,850 | −$100 |
| 37 | South Carolina | $1,800 | −$150 |
The rows within ten percent are lopsided: 5 below North Dakota against 2 above. $0 up or $0 down moves North Dakota a row, so a downward revision would cost the state far more places than an equivalent upward one would gain — the 31st position is propped up by a thin real estate closing field above it and a crowded one beneath.
Climbing five places would mean passing Wyoming, Tennessee, Arizona, Florida, Montana and adding $200 to the $1,950 recorded here.
Five places down means passing under West Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, Ohio, North Carolina: $100.
$1,250 short of Hawaii ($3,200), $500 clear of Kentucky ($1,450).
The $1,950 median covers only about 9 hours at the $210 median rate, which is short enough that flat-fee and limited-scope arrangements, rather than an hourly meter, tend to describe how the work is actually billed. That rounds to the same 9 hours as the peer median, so on workload North Dakota is indistinguishable from the middle of the table at this precision.
The escalation is comparatively shallow on hours. A complex real estate closing costs 5.1x a simple one in North Dakota, but the implied workload only rises 3.5x — 4 hours at $170 becomes 14 hours at $270 — meaning the senior-rate premium of 1.59x carries an unusually large share of the increase.
From $1,350 to $2,700 the moderate band is $1,350 wide, close to the $1,525 peer median. End to end that is 6 hours at $210.
The $1,950 median across 1-3 months is about $975 a month. A complex real estate closing costs more in total but less per month — roughly $856 across 3-6 months — because the additional cost arrives as a longer timeline rather than a heavier monthly burn.
A third ordering: by implied hours North Dakota is 10th of 46 at 9 hours, 21 places above its cost rank of 31st on cost — more work behind the same real estate closing money.
65% up the $1,350–$2,700 band sits the $2,225 table midpoint, buying 11 hours at $210 against the 9 the local real estate closing median implies — 2 hours apart.
| Measure | North Dakota | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Moderate median | $1,950 | 31st |
| Hourly median | $210 | 36th |
| Implied hours | 9 | 10th |
| Simple median | $750 | 44th |
| Complex median | $3,850 | 35th |
$210 an hour puts North Dakota between North Carolina ($210) and Mississippi ($205) — not the real estate closing cost pairing.
Kansas, Nebraska, North Carolina record the same $210: rate cannot separate them, totals do.
$1,950 buys 11 hours at $170, 9 at $210, 7 at $270.
| Rank | State | Median rate |
|---|---|---|
| 34 | Nebraska | $210 |
| 35 | North Carolina | $210 |
| 36 | North Dakota | $210 |
| 37 | Mississippi | $205 |
| 38 | West Virginia | $205 |
North Dakota moves up the table as complexity rises: 44th at the simple tier, 31st at moderate, 35th at complex, a 9-place climb. The state's position on the headline moderate figure understates where it sits once a matter is contested.
$750 is 44th of 46 on a straightforward real estate closing, under Louisiana ($750) and over Oklahoma ($750), $250 under the $1,000 tier midpoint.
$3,850 is 35th of 46 once contested, between Kansas ($3,850) and Ohio ($3,800), $725 off the $4,575 tier midpoint.
$250 separates the simple ceiling of $1,100 from the moderate floor of $1,350, so the first escalation is a clean break, while the moderate and complex bands overlap from $2,550 upward. The expensive end of a routine real estate closing and the cheap end of a contested one are the same money in North Dakota.
| Tier | North Dakota | Rank | Tier midpoint | Implied hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| simple | $750 | 44th | $1,000 | 4 |
| moderate | $1,950 | 31st | $2,225 | 9 |
| complex | $3,850 | 35th | $4,575 | 14 |
$750 drops North Dakota to 44th of 46 on straightforward matters, 13 below its moderate position and $250 (25%) under the $1,000 tier midpoint.
4 implied hours at $170: 44% of the moderate tier's 9, over 2-4 weeks.
Louisiana ($750) and Oklahoma ($750) bracket it — a $0 window.
2 states sit within three percent of the $750 here, against 6 at the moderate row.
$3,850 drops North Dakota to 35th of 46 on contested matters, 4 below its moderate position and $725 (16%) under the $4,575 tier midpoint.
14 implied hours at $270: 156% of the moderate tier's 9, over 3-6 months.
Kansas ($3,850) and Ohio ($3,800) bracket it — a $50 window.
7 states record a complex-tier median within three percent of $3,850, denser than the 6 around the moderate row.
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 42 | South Dakota | $800 |
| 43 | Louisiana | $750 |
| 44 | North Dakota | $750 |
| 45 | Oklahoma | $750 |
| 46 | Arkansas | $700 |
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 33 | South Carolina | $3,900 |
| 34 | Kansas | $3,850 |
| 35 | North Dakota | $3,850 |
| 36 | Ohio | $3,800 |
| 37 | South Dakota | $3,800 |
In North Dakota a real estate closing is 7th of 8 at $1,950, between Bankruptcy and Estate Planning / Probate. At 23% of Criminal Defense ($8,550).
The state does not rank uniformly. North Dakota is 24th of 46 for Personal Injury but 45th for DUI / DWI, a 21-place spread across the matter types tracked here, so its 31st on real estate closing says little about what the other lines cost.
North Dakota is not equally priced in every practice area. Measured against each matter's own midpoint, Immigration runs 8% below its own midpoint while Estate Planning / Probate runs 23% below its own midpoint — a 15-point spread between the extremes.
The largest tracked median in North Dakota is 5.3x the smallest, effectively the 5.1x that the typical state records: the internal spread is ordinary even where the levels are not.
0 of 8 matter types rank North Dakota in the upper third, 5 in the lower, 3 between; real estate closing is 31st.
In percentile terms it sits at the 33th percentile of the 46 tracked states.
| Matter | Simple | Moderate | Complex | Hours | Rank | vs mid | Above |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Criminal Defense | $3,150 | $8,550 | $24,250 | 34 | 39th | −16% | Montana |
| Divorce | $2,600 | $7,200 | $17,750 | 29 | 44th | −16% | Oklahoma |
| DUI / DWI | $2,900 | $5,800 | $15,250 | 25 | 45th | −22% | Alabama |
| Immigration | $1,650 | $4,350 | $8,900 | 19 | 34th | −8% | Florida |
| Personal Injury | $1,350 | $4,050 | $12,100 | — | 24th | −22% | Kansas |
| Bankruptcy | $1,200 | $3,100 | $4,300 | 15 | 35th | −14% | Indiana |
| Real Estate Closing | $750 | $1,950 | $3,850 | 9 | 31st | −12% | Montana |
| Estate Planning / Probate | $550 | $1,600 | $5,200 | 7 | 40th | −23% | Louisiana |
Simple tier. $750 ÷ $170 = about 4 hours — 5 fewer than the moderate tier's 9, and $1,200 less.
Work against price. $1,950 to $3,850 is a $1,900 step weighted toward price: 5 more hours at $210 is $1,050, but $270 across 14 hours adds $840 — 44% of it.
Borrowing the wrong row. West Virginia ($1,950) is $0 light, Montana ($1,950) is $0 heavy — but the $2,225 table midpoint is out by $275, 275x the neighbour error.
Both ends, in time. $1,350 is 6 hours at $210; $2,700 is 13. Over the 1-3 months recorded for a moderate real estate closing, that is 3 to 7 hours a month — the difference between an occasional file review and continuous work.
Contested against simple. At North Dakota's own recorded figures, $3,850 buys 5.1 matters at the $750 simple median — or, counted in time, 14 implied hours against 4, a factor of 3.5 — the two ratios differing because the rate rises with the tier.
Verified June 2026. Filing fees change on the North Dakotacourt's own schedule; billing models are covered in the legal fees guide.
This tool provides general cost estimates for informational purposes only. It is NOT legal advice. Costs vary significantly based on individual circumstances. Consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for specific guidance.