We Buy Houses for Cash in Rhode Island

Rhode Island is small, but its home-sale rules are unusually detailed, and one of them just got more expensive: the state's real estate conveyance tax rose to $3.75 per $500 of the price effective October 1, 2025. Sellers here also deal with a long statutory disclosure form, built-in ten-day inspection windows for lead, private wells and cesspools, and a smoke and carbon monoxide certificate at closing. If your house is an older multi-family, a coastal property with flood questions, or a home that has fallen behind on the mortgage, a conventional sale can drag through all of that. Swifty Home Buyers buys Rhode Island houses for cash, as-is, with no agent commissions and no repair requests, and you choose the closing date.

We buy houses in all 50 states. This guide covers the rules that matter in Rhode Island.

The Rhode Island Division of Taxation states the conveyance tax as $3.75 for each $500 of consideration (or fraction thereof), which is 0.75% of the price, and unless the parties agree otherwise it is paid by the seller. The rate applies to transfers after the October 1, 2025 increase, so older guides may quote a lower figure. On a $300,000 sale that is $2,250. Residential sales above a threshold face a second layer: an additional $3.75 per $500 on the portion of the price over the threshold, which the Division set at $824,000 for calendar year 2026 and which adjusts each year with the consumer price index. Manufactured homes are taxed at a different rate, listed by the Division at $1.40 per $500. Besides the tax you should expect attorney fees, recording costs, payoff of any loans or liens and prorated property taxes. In a traditional sale the agent's commission and any repairs come on top of that. With a cash sale to Swifty there is no commission and no repair list, and we put the numbers in writing before you commit.

Most Rhode Island foreclosures proceed by statutory power of sale under R.I. Gen. Laws 34-27-4, which does not require a judge to approve the auction. For an individual consumer mortgagor, the lender must send written notice by certified mail at least 30 days before the first newspaper publication, and the sale is advertised once a week for three successive weeks, with the first ad at least 21 days before the sale date. There are added protections for active-duty servicemembers, who cannot be foreclosed on during or within nine months after service without a court order or agreement. Rhode Island also has a mediation conference law, 34-27-9, for owner-occupied one- to four-unit primary residences, under which the lender must offer the owner a mediation conference before foreclosing. RIHousing provides free HUD-approved counseling and lists a mediation coordinator for homeowners, and its counselors can discuss loan modifications, work-out agreements and repayment plans. When a workout is not realistic, selling before the auction date can pay off the loan and leave you any equity, rather than leaving it to a foreclosure sale. A Rhode Island attorney can confirm your deadlines.

• Sell as-is
• Inherited house
• Foreclosure
• Tenants or rental property

Coastal Rhode Island and Washington County

The state's disclosure form asks specifically about flood plain and wetlands, and any house that may be served by a private cesspool comes with the ten-day cesspool inspection window in the sales contract, which is meant to determine whether the system falls under the state's phase-out requirements. Shoreline and summer homes often raise both questions at once, on top of the seasonal wear that comes with a coastal property. If you own one that you no longer use, we buy it as-is, and we plan our timeline around the state's inspection periods rather than asking you to make repairs first.