As owner builders who are turning every penny to squeeze the most beautiful building out of our modest budget that we possibly can, unexpected large costs that were not included in the initial budget, come as a terrible knock each time. I fattened the planned budget by 20% to account for these sorts of things but that age-old concept of a building project costing double what one budgets for, rings true when one encounters these pit fall payments.
I am sure that we haven’t seen the end of these nasty bills yet so this post will be updated as I discover more of the costs that we didn’t factor in when embarking on this project. So far, I will cover title deeds registration fees, building approval submission fee at the municipal office, geological survey fees, conservancy tank test fees. I hope that by writing about these things, other new owner builders building their own homes for the first time will avoid these horrors and make sure to account for what is to come.
- Registration fees
We bought a piece of land that had no buildings on it with a value of less than R1 000 000. As such, I was assured by the real estate agent and the lawyer engaged by the seller that there are no transfer fees (which is the absolute truth). ‘Phew, what a relief, no extra cost that I hadn’t really budgeted for’, I thought upon purchasing. We then had a big delay as the deeds office closes over the festive holiday period and we could only lodge in the new year. After a 3 month back-and-forth between the deeds office, a lawyer who didn’t know the ins and outs of agricultural law and the seller who had moved to Scotland in the interim, we finally submitted our documents to the deeds office. And then we received our bill for the registration fee…
It cost us R23 000 to register our deed at the title deeds office! When you consider that this is the same price as our corrugated sheeting water reservoir or could pay for half of the roof over the bedroom wing or for almost all the doors in the house, it puts into perspective what a big chunk it was.
2. Building Approval Submission Fee
This fee nearly made me fall over. When submitting plans to your municipality for approval there is a submission fee that one must pay for the process. Is it calculated according to the square-meterage of your house (if I had known this, I would have designed a smaller building, LOL) and using a sliding scale, they add up the amounts for every size bracket your house surpasses. See the table below.
When I was handed the invoice, my stomach dropped and I thought that there must be an error. It looked like there was one number too many. Surely it must be R1634 and not R16 634! I immediately called someone I know who has knowledge of these things and they confirmed that, ‘no, that sounds about right’. Again, such a big fee that we didn’t expect to pay.
3. The Geological Survey
It is a requirement when submitting plans for approval in South Africa that a geological survey be included in the drawing set which I explain in this post. While I don’t begrudge having it done because it gave us a lot of important and useful information. But it did cost us several thousands of Rands which we didn’t anticipate paying.
4. Fuel Price Increases
Never have I felt the increases in fuel prices more acutely than in this time of building a house. This is definitely a more difficult moment than any other considering the influence that the Russian-Ukraine situation has had on local fuel prices but I think that this is something that impacts building no matter when you build. With every price jump, the price of cement goes up, so concrete and blocks goes up; delivery goes up; supply of anything dwindles as people stock up on items before the next price jump; fewer things are imported at higher rates; the steel price goes up in a terrifying way; etc; etc. Basically, with every passing week, we go over budget more and more. It’s a very big thing to consider before you start your own house.
5. Conservancy Tank Inspection Fee
Due to the high level of E-Coli in ground water as a result of too many people stressing underground soak away (French) drains, these may no longer be built with new houses. Instead, a conservancy tank must be built according to municipal specification and your sewerage will then be collected once a month and taken to a processing plant. The specified tank is a similar size to the tank on the truck that collects the sewerage – approximately 6000L. Once the construction of the tank is complete, then a test is scheduled and the municipality brings 6000L to fill your tank and test for leaks. The water for the tests costs thousands of Rands and once the test is done, they take that water away and it gets discharged into the regular sewerage system – it’s such a waste. Fortunately, we were able to convince the man who came to check the level and give his stamp of approval, to let us keep the water to pump back into our Leiwater dam.