If your house is built now, maybe it is the annual tax bill?

No we just got the approval for building. I’m hoping they added a extra 0.

Ours was over 6k for 2680 square feet.

Our kitchen permit was only about $250.00 but we are only doing just the kitchen right now. Sounds like you might building an entire house from the ground up? Could be maybe why your permit costs are so expensive? I would definitely look into it & check up on it & make sure they didn't add an extra '0' as you said.

Yes, sorry it is a new build for a house. But I read that only 2 percent Pay more than 5,000. 00 I know costs will be adding up I just wasn’t expecting this much

In my city the development fees are 20k for a single family home, plus building permit.

The fees vary dramatically depending on where you are. Can you look up the fees online for your location? Many municipalities post their fee schedule so that you know what the fees are before you submit your application. The last time we built, we had to include payment with the application, and it was $14,000 in 2009.

Where are you? Sounds like CA or NE? It depends 'allot' on where you are in the country. I built a house in the Charlotte area 8yrs ago around 3400sf and the permit was $1200. The permit covers the inspections during building. It 'should' be reasonable.

I am in Las Vegas. The web site has a schedule that you can cost your permit and it only says 2,600. But I guess they have other fees they are putting in. I will call in the morning. I’m still hoping it’s a mistake

$10000 for 4000 sqft in 2009; $2400 for 3700 sqft in 2017. 2 towns that adjoin each other in NC. Permit fees are typically in the $1000-$2000 range. Impact or development fees are the big number and are incredibly variable.

I just checked on line from our town that has a thorough website and the answer is not easy to find. The fact is there is a $1000 impact fee for a driveway. There are probably several of numbers like this buried in huge lists of fees so the total number is hard to find.

$500.00 in my area (MO)...building permit is $50.00 but road impact fee is $450.00

EDIT TO ADD:

Not to rub salt in the wound but taxes on our 3,000 square foot home built about 4 years ago, 30 acres, oversized 2 car attached garage plus a 32x42 foot shop with office and full bath are $2,037.55 :)

In my county the fee is 14 cents per sq ft. There are additional fees of $100 each for electric, HVAC, plumbing, and a couple other things. I would expect to pay about $1000 for permits for a house that size.

Your answer is at the building department, ask them why it is that amount. Or don't pay it and they will come to you and explain it.

Do you have an architect, designer or GC on the project with you? Perhaps one of them can explain this.

C$15-C$17 a sq. meter in the Toronto area. Plus, plumbing fees per each fixture. Electrical permits. Tree permits. And on and on. The big ones are the municipal sewer/water connections. Often in the neighbourhood of C$10K+--and that's on a standard city lot.

We paid almost $10K for our 4600 sf home.

I'm in rural, central NC. Ours was just under $1000 for a 2400 sq ft home. Prior to the building permit, we paid between $300-400 for the site inspection and for the perk test for septic.

Permits and fees vary wildly from one jurisdiction to another, for a whole host of reasons. As Mark suggested, a call to your building department is where you will find your answer...

Los Angeles area - we paid around $10,000 in permit fees to add a guest house to our property. And the tax assesor was knocking on our door hours after the COO was signed, looking to verify and hand us a tax bill. Told the guy since he had all our information from the permit, he could call to make an appointment and not just show up unannounced at people's doors. Took his card and closed the front door!

In our Bay Area CA city, part of the building permit fees included a whopper of a bill from the school district, around $5K. The total permit fees came in around $19K. $10K of that was refundable at the end of the build when we submitted evidence of proper recycling. There was a very short period in which to file for the refund, and the city wasn't exactly diligent about letting us know that one of the docs we gave them hadn't passed their review because of a typo. Our GC fixed it in time, but it was a near thing.

Claudia-

Please post details when you get an answer from the city.

I was able to speak to the someone in the permits department and she said it’s not final but she gave me the breakdown on the 3 main fees. The 1,800. 00 we paid at the beginning was just the fees for them to look at our plans. Of the almost 9,000.00 3995.00 is for the permit, 2185.00 is the fee to connect to the city sewer, which I knew had to be paid but didn’t realize it was added into this permit. 900.00 is a traffic impact fee, the rest of the fees she said would be broken down when the last technician looks over what the other technicians did. When I get the email hopefully in the next few days I will post. I appreciate everyone’s suggestions.

Claudia-

Thanks for the update. Where I live the sewer hookup fee is about the same amount as yours, but gets charged over a 15 year period. So, right after I moved into my 3 year old house, I was shocked when I was surprised by a biannual bill for a debt I didn't know existed. Twelve years later, it's almost paid off.... :-(

We are in North Vancouver and so far have paid over $30,000 for permits. This includes hook ups, demo and building permit, tree removal permits, bird nest survey (yes that's a thing), and a deposit we hope to get back at the end.

Nothing is free. I believe that Nevada is a "no state income tax" state. This is one of the reasons for the higher fees. It's like the school taxes / property taxes in Texas.

Alison, that’s a lot! We have a fee for some kind of desert turtle, we have to pay even though there aren’t any on our lot

jannicone, that correct we don’t have State income tax

Personally, I respectfully and truly humblely point out that these fees should be paid to you to offset the property taxes you will pay upon your work until and even past the very end of your lives. Your state has already given this break to numerous businesses, but you are meek and do not ask nor seek the respect the states easily offer outsiders that seek to increase state controlled assets. So get off your ass and get fussy! Mad even! What is wrong with asking for equal representation?

Good luck with that dirtmechanic.

The fee creep is very annoying. But it is often the truth that new houses create a significant cost for the city/region and that should be paid.

Interesting that here - the tearing down of an infill house costs about the same as the impact fees for a totally new house. Makes some sense - no new roads, sewer hookup etc.

Sounds about right for a new construction for that size house. Ask them, if that includes water and sewer connection fees, plus if this is a single new lot, you might need a street opening permit to do your taps for water and sewer, in some places around here its another $2500-3k not to mention you might need to rent a cop for a day if you on the narrow street that's additional $500-700 depending on the town.

"Traffic impact" fees? I'm SO glad I will never build a new house!

@Anglophilla Traffic impact fees would apply in cases if you planning to build a development over so many houses, townhouses or rentals and there is a state or county road in the vicinity and the traffic could be impacted because of it, they would require doing a traffic impact study.

I never heard you would need that for a single-family house or a few house lot subdivision.

It is so location specific. We just finished building a duplex in a Colorado ski town, about 5200 finished square feet, about 1250 in two garages, and just over 3000 sq. ft. in unfinished walkout basements (but stubbed for two more baths on each side) and our building permit and tap fees combined were just over six figures or about 5% of total budget. However, property taxes are relatively reasonable.

Well...after all this...do you have the information which makes you comfortable...? The real answer is every jurisdiction is different... and every jurisdiction is what it is. Good to check ahead of time. But it won't change what the final cost will be.

The most I've heard of personally was a friend in CT who paid $66K, but it involved wetlands. The least I've known of was a friend in TN. No building department, no permit, no money. Ours in rural SC was $480, and took about 15 minutes to get.

I think the hard thing as the homeowner, is that at least in the city I live, the feed aren’t actually listed. Some individual ones are but the big costs aren’t because they vary by lot and size of the house. There is a formula online but trying to decipher how to input info to the formula as a laymen is tricky. We were given a range for what ours would be and were in that range just too end of it.

I live in the Bay Area and i paid $66,000 in total(yes, you read it right $66,000.00) for planning and county fees.

This is a perfect example of why and how permit and other fees vary so widely, and there is no common standard. In some areas, there's little construction and fees are modest. In other areas, such as the Bay Area where available land has disappeared and yet demand has increased, fees have risen astronomically. Some areas encourage building and other areas discourage building. Fees are a way to accomplish both goals. Ask me how I know...