My wife and I recently bought a house and when sitting down with our real estate agent (who rocked) she took a look at our down payment and immediately asked us to cut $3000 out and put it into a savings account. That then became our "holy **** I didn't realize we had to pay for that" fund. Things like lawyers, house inspectors and such all came out of that account.
Our designated savings was a little high as we were first time buyers and that fund really helped with those moments when I'd look at my wife and say something along the lines of "what do you mean I have to buy a ladder?". Living in apartments and condos for the 3 years prior we obviously hadn't built up a whole lot of gardening and maintenance tools.
What was nice about the whole situation was that we aimed high and saved more than was needed. That way if it really hit the fan we were covered and if it didn't we would emerge after the dust had settled and we would have a nice little buffer account (ours actually still has about $1700 in it).
One thing that really took us by surprise was the property taxes because not only did we set it up to be tacked on to our monthly mortgage, but we had to pay a lump sum for several months to close out the year. That was a $600 cheque that we certainly did not plan for.
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