Show Me The Fee

Let me tell you a little something about building permits. They are required for just about everything you could possible do to a building. If you want to change out the light switch on the wall of your living room with a dimmer, a building permit is required. With that said, if you go into most building departments and ask for a permit to change out your light switch they will laugh at your-rightly so. We get people trying to build a whole house without a permit so your little switch problem just gives us the giggles.

I tell you this because if you plan on building a big patio cover, adding on a room, or converting your garage to living space you had better get that permit. If they catch you doing it you get red tagged and all work must come to a screeching halt. They can also fine you thousands of dollars. On the other hand, if you manage to get the work finished without being caught, it is still illegal and it can’t be counted in the value of your house, plus it can void your insurance. If you ever decide to sell it you will be coming to us to get a permit

We are like most departments in that we will double all of your permit fees if you start work without a permit. That gets pretty damn expensive. People are always bitching to us that it costs too much money. I agree with that, but here is a little breakdown so people can understand.

If you build a house that is about 2000 square feet in our area you will pay us about $6000 for that permit. That does not count the outrageous amount of money you will also have to pay to the school district you are building in (and it does not matter if you have kids, will never have kids, hate kids with a passion, etc.).

People see that $6000 and freak out and yell at us all the time. There are some things they do not understand.

Since the building department is the only department that actually requires a visit by you, all of the other agencies bill their fees through us. That means you are paying your police impact fee, fire department fee, road impact fee, and any other fees your area may have, through US. We are their glorified collection agency.

The actual cost of your building permit that we charge you – about $1600.

You would be happy if that was all you had to pay, and in some areas it is. Then those areas make you run around to 5 other agencies and pay them individually. We are saving you gas so you should be thanking us. You are welcome.

Another little tidbit that may be of some interest to people is that the building department is legally prohibited from making a profit. We can only charge enough money to cover our operating costs. Since you have to do a budget each year we have to figure out what our office costs will be and then adjust the fees so that we cover that amount as close to even as possible.

Please stop bitching to us about the fees. They are actually pretty reasonable on our end and it is not our fault what other agencies charge.

Anyway, I had to deal with a moron today that brings new meaning to the term dumbass. I will tell that on the next post.