I've concluded that areas with exorbitant permit fees really don't want you to build, but will allow it if you're willing to pay the price of admission. By contrast, our permit in rural South Carolina was $400, and took 1/2 hour to get.

I'm curious; in areas with really high permit fees- Does that get rolled into the mortgage? How does it affect the appraisal?

Oddly, Mushcreek, I'd agree with your conclusions, but this is a town where every week or so there is an article in the paper about the need for affordable housing and the issue of affordable housing is always on the city council's agenda -- city council's typical mode of operation being to appoint a task force or hire a consultant and then do nothing with the advice.

We got hit hard by permits because (1) square footage -- it's a duplex with 5077 sq, feet total combined finished space, but large unfinished basements (valued for permit purposes at 50% of finished space -- finished basements count are valued the same as any other finished space and (2) quality -- valuation is based on a sliding scale of build quality based on the design and specs and ours got rated at the top of the scale.

The time to get the permit wasn't too bad -- about 3 weeks.

I don't know if it gets rolled into the loan or appraisal or not and it really doesn't matter to us because we are putting not paying it with the loan and still will be putting in about 65% of the remaing cost to build on the front end, not even including the land cost. We don't have the appraisal yet, but based upon recent comps including one two lots down, it'll be fine.

I understand that permit fees can be onerous, but I can't see how $400 can adequately cover the inspections for an entire house build, no matter how low a COLA you live in. Ultimately the permitting process is as much for the protection of the neighbors as it is for the homeowner. I know that I prefer to prevent avoidable electrical fires from faulty wiring, or lax drainage that impacts my yard and foundation, etc. Of course it makes sense that a rural area will be less impacted by that than a tightly packed suburb or urban area, but there is also the protection that a homeowner (or future homebuyer) gets from knowing that an impartial, experienced set of eyes has reviewed the plans and the work done.

They do very brief, cursory inspections here. As an example- I had an inspection prior to the basement slab. The very next inspection was combined rough framing, rough plumbing, and rough electric. In other words, I built the entire shell of the house and plumbed it and wired it. When they came to inspect it, they didn't even shut the engine off! They were here about 3 minutes total. I recently pulled a permit to run permanent power to my barn, The permit was $15. They inspected the underground and rough-in, but never showed up for the final. They just checked it off as 'Passed', without even looking at it! Let's just say that I'm glad I do my own work, and know what I'm doing. I agree; $400 is not enough for adequate inspections.

I am not sure if our permit fee's are high, however I think our impact fee's are high ( 9K for a 2000 sq ft home. The builder put these and the permit fee's into our contract so for us I guess the answer is Yes it gets rolled into the total costs on paper, then we pay the downpayment.

Neither our county nor township even offer building permits. Health department performed a well and septic inspection, but no other inspections exist.

I'm curious about the cost of inspections relating to quality. I assumed that municipal government inspectors are salaried employees. I assumed their salary pays for them to perform required inspections as part of their job (or maybe their whole job). I assumed that the amount charged for permits/fees etc. was not indicative of the quality of the inspection but just reflected whatever the local market would bear as a revenue source. Is this totally wrong? How does it really work?

I think each town is different in how they operate, but my basic assumption is that the town has certain expectations for how thorough inspections should be, and then based on how many people they need to cover the expected number of inspections and their salary computes a cost for the permits to adequately cover those costs.

We are in a low COLA in the midwest, in a town of about 150,000. Our building permits were around $350 for a 3,000 sq ft home, which included a footings/foundation inspection, a framing inspection, rough-in inspections of the electric, plumbing, HVAC, and gas, and a final inspection. I felt like our inspections were pretty detailed and definitely helped us spot some issues along the way that might have caused problems later. Our sewer connection fees were separate from the building permit and were about $500 I think. We paid about $2,000 total in fees to tie in to the electric, gas, and water directly to the utility company.

Man, I didn't realize how brutal our $15k impact fee was.

Could someone explain what an impact fee is? I gather that it's in addition to the permit fee, but it's not clear what exactly the town/county says that it's for.

Our permit fee was about $450 and was based on the total cost that we were spending on the house. We also had a septic permit which was about $200 - that was to a state agency and they sent a worker out to test our soil and locate where we were allowed to put the tank and field.

On inspections we had a footing inspection, then a foundation (piers) inspection. For that one the inspector looked into one pier, which are 10' high, to see that there was rebar in it. Next will be "rough framing" which is an inspection of the sheathing and straps and nailing patterns (we're in a hurricane zone). Then MEP, then framing, then final.

It's a fee that the country government collects for schools and roads. Basically, in growing areas, this is how you make sure that huge developers pay their way.

Ours are about $12k so not cheap either.

Where we are building the lake house there are no impact fees. The cost of the building permit is a function of the estimate of value on a sliding scale. Examples: the fee for a $100,000 dwelling is $470, for a $500,000 dwelling $1,760. There are additional permits and fees for well and septic. In our case these fees totaled less than $250 (we had some additional costs for a backhoe needed to complete the septic testing). Because the property borders a lake, the inspectors really do care about the well and septic. I can't speak for how thorough the building inspectors are as our builder has been the interface with those inspectors.

I asked the inspector if they were busy, and he said that he had 37 more inspections to make that day. They are in the office in the morning for a while, and also in the afternoon when they do their paperwork. If they work an 8 hour day, that leaves them about 6 hours to do inspections. If they do 38 inspections in 6 hours, that's less than 10 minuted per inspection, including drive time. Doesn't leave much time to actually inspect. I get the impression that the inspections are mostly so they will know how much tax to charge when it's done. I submitted NO drawings to get my permit, and just basic dimensions showing the overall dimensions of the house once it was completed.

At the other extreme is a friend of mine in CT who paid $66,000 in permits, impact fees, and variances to build a house. For that kind of money, I would want the inspector to help build it!

I've done a little more research and our permit fees cover plan review, periodic inspections, excise taxes and use taxes, so the building materials are not taxed. That makes it sound a lot better, since the permit fees + tap fees combined are in the low six figures -- approx 102,000 and it is for a two family dwelling. We paid as part of our down payment but the loan officer did say it counts towards our equity in the loan to value calculations.

Permit and fees for a 540 sq. ft. pool house with a bathroom was $28,000 almost 6 years ago.

In many areas around here the soft costs are equal to the hard costs of construction.

Building permit costs here are all over the spectrum. There are dirt cheap areas and castle amount areas.

Having helped build about 40 Habitat for Humanity homes and having my own remodeling company caused me to become quite familiar with inspectors. Especially because the Greater Kansas City area has about 32 class 2 or 3 cities in the Metro and they all have their own building codes and inspectors.

Basically, the bigger cities(Kansas City, Kansas, Overland Park, Kansas, Lenexa, Kansas, and Bonner Springs Kansas have decent codes offices and inspectors. The other 12 or so cities on the Kansas side have inspectors who are often part time. While many of those folks are actually nice people, many of them are a bit short on knowledge of the building codes and procedures.

I had an inspector fail me on a rehab reframing job because I had too many studs in the walls. He said ONLY 16" on center, 12" was not code. Long involved story as to why, but a call to his boss fixed the situation. 16" on center is minimum code, more is not exactly necessary, but not wrong.

And I have done unpermitted work(legally, following that cities building codes) with an inspector visiting a job next door about three times a week. We talked frequently.

So, huge differences by different locales. Very often, when in an unfamiliar location, knowing an inspection was necessary, I contacted the inspector and had them explain what they looked for---made the work much smoother. I still did better than minimum code work, but seldom had an inspection problem.

My fees should be low, but it will take me 3 months to get the permits I need! I need a driveway permit, a building permit and a septic permit. The township meets once a month, and will only decide on one each month. You have to get the driveway first month, then come back and get building, then finally the septic the third month assuming the first two are approved. AND you have to start building within 6 months of the driveway permit! I just had to push my build off 6 months because I wouldn't be able to get my final permit until the 4th week of Sept if it all went through and by mid October there are already restrictions on cutting a driveway, and It would have to be started by Jan! Which is impossible to start a house in a Wisconsin Winter. So hoping for a first of April or May start with ALL the permits ready to go and all decisions made.