Building “Fees”

by Shawn @ 4:41 pm · filed under House Stuff

So today I had to pay all the "fees" required to build a house. This included the following:

Traffic Impact Fee: $8,299.00
Park Fee: $1,000.00
Fire District Fee: $4,132.36
Building Permit Fee: $2,176.00
PAD: $4,000.00 (I don't even know what in the hell this stands for)
Fire District Plan Check Fee: $350 $450
Water District meter installation fee: $33,226.00
Sewer Fee: $600
School District Fee: $40,958.98 $30,387.31

Are you serious? $94,742.34 $84,270.67 in "fees" just so you can get permission from the city and various agencies to build a house? This is on top of the $5,545.78 plan check fees already paid, which puts the total at $100,288.12 $89,816.45 and we aren't even building yet. I wonder if SDG&E is going to charge to install the transformer for electricity (probably). Ouch.

Oh, there is also a "Drainage Fee" that will be due and I have no clue what that amount is going to be yet.

If you were building a house for resale, how does anyone make any money??

Update

June 2, 2006 - Apparently I was accidentally overcharged by the school district by $10,571.67, so they are sending that back.

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8 Responses to “Building “Fees””

Johan Says:
May 1st, 2006 at 1:26 am

Are they fixed fees or relative to the value of the property? 41 grand just to make sure other people’s kids can learn about birds and bees seem a tad excessive to me…

I just moved and paid about £2800 in fees and thought that sucked too… It pales in comparison!

Shawn Says:
May 1st, 2006 at 1:27 am

The school fee is based on the square footage of the house, but I think all the others are set fees.

Johan Says:
May 1st, 2006 at 2:16 am

Well, good to know your government will spend every penny of it wisely… That system to protect the world against interstellar missiles is long overdue…

On a serious note, could PAD be “Pipe Acquisition Disorder” perhaps?

ViciousSummer Says:
May 2nd, 2006 at 2:43 am

PAD is the Pissing Away Dollars fee. Duh.

AlextheMadGreek Says:
May 7th, 2006 at 10:02 am

Wow! My parents are building right now in Ramona, they paid 17k in fees. Drilling a well saves a lot of money, but i’m sure that cannot be done on your lot.

Shawn Says:
May 7th, 2006 at 10:27 am

Yeah, wells aren’t allowed by the HOA, but also… where the lot is situated, you probably would have to drill through about 800 feet of solid granite to hit ground water. Which might be a little pricey.

I wish I could get a well though… I’m sure my water bill is going to be crazy.

Tom Says:
May 21st, 2006 at 1:03 pm

Your house is probably 30,000 Square feet, that’s why. Lol

John Loch Says:
June 21st, 2006 at 9:35 pm

If you were building a house for resale, how does anyone make any money??

Wait.

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