We Buy Houses for Cash in West Virginia

In West Virginia, the details are often under the house, not in it. The deed tax is made up of a state piece and a county piece, the minerals beneath a lot can belong to someone other than the surface owner, and when a loan is secured by a deed of trust, the lender's remedy is a trustee's sale at public auction, with a notice clock set by statute. Houses range from older homes in river-valley towns to hillside properties served by a well and septic system, and some need work that a buyer's lender may not finance. Swifty Home Buyers can make a cash offer on a West Virginia house as it stands, with no agent commissions and no repair list, and close on the date you choose. Here is how the state's rules and customs fit together so you can compare a cash sale with listing.

We buy houses in all 50 states. This guide covers the rules that matter in West Virginia.

West Virginia taxes the privilege of transferring title under W. Va. Code 11-22-2, and the tax has two parts. The state excise tax is $1.10 for each $500 of value or fraction of $500. A county tax is added: the statute sets it at 55 cents for each $500 and allows a county to increase it, to no more than $1.65 for each $500. Because counties choose, the total is not the same everywhere. The Cabell County Clerk, for one, states the transfer tax fee as $5.50 for every $1,000 of the purchase price, which is the $1.10 state rate plus $1.65 county rate for each $500, and notes a separate $20 fee that goes to the West Virginia Housing Development Fund. At that rate a $150,000 sale carries $825 in tax. The statute says the grantor pays unless the grantee accepts the document without the tax having been paid, in which case the grantee pays, and the tax is due when the document is delivered, accepted or presented for recording. The clerk bases the tax on the price shown on the deed, or on the property's value when no price is listed. Beyond the tax, a traditional listing brings agent commissions, payoff of loans and liens, prorated property taxes and attorney or title fees. When you sell to Swifty there is no commission, and we put every closing cost in writing before you agree to anything.

When a home loan is secured by a deed of trust, W. Va. Code 38-1-3 says that once a debt secured by the deed is due and in default and the conditions in the deed have happened, the trustee sells the property at public auction after giving the required notice. Section 38-1-4 sets that notice: the trustee publishes it as a Class II legal advertisement in the county where the property is located, a copy goes to the grantor, or the grantor's agent or personal representative, by certified mail, return receipt requested, and a subordinate lienholder who has asked for notice gets it by certified mail at least twenty days before the sale. The publication schedule itself comes from chapter 59, article 3, so ask your attorney or the trustee for the exact dates. Separately, Chapter 46A of the Code includes a notice-of-right-to-cure rule: under 46A-2-106, a creditor covered by it may not accelerate the unpaid balance until ten days after notice has been given to the consumer. Ask a West Virginia attorney whether it applies to your loan. The trustee-sale statutes we reviewed describe the notice and the auction and do not provide a buy-back period afterward, and we did not find language on deficiencies in them, so do not assume either way. An attorney can tell you whether you could still owe money after the auction. For help, the West Virginia Housing Development Fund's Homeowners Rescue Program stopped accepting new applications in May 2024, and its help page now points homeowners to HUD-approved counseling at 1-800-569-4287, NeighborWorks at 1-888-995-HOPE and 211 for information by county. If you sell before the sale date, the payoff comes out of the proceeds and any equity is yours instead of being decided at auction.

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

Cabell County and Huntington

The Cabell County Clerk's recording office at 750 5th Avenue, Suite 108, in Huntington is a good example of how the county piece shows up. Its page states the transfer tax fee as $5.50 for every $1,000 of the purchase price, or of the property's value when the price is not listed on the deed, plus a $20 fee that goes to the West Virginia Housing Development Fund. It says every deed recorded requires a completed Sales Listing Form and that a deed claiming an exemption must state the reason, otherwise the fee is charged. Those numbers belong to Cabell County; another county may charge a different county rate, so a title company should confirm yours.