'Inexplicable discrepancies between construction fees for new homes'

A building permit for a new home has dropped in price by an average of 24% this year. However, these apparent cost reductions are distorted by large and inexplicable outliers in a sample of 21 municipalities from Vereniging Eigen Huis and WoningBouwersNL. Where in one municipality building fees shoot up by 80%, another municipality lowers the same fees by 90%. Vereniging Eigen Huis pleads for more transparency in the substantiation of the costs of new building permits.

The introduction of the new Environment Act on January 1, 2024 should result in an average of 30% lower construction fees, according to outgoing minister Hugo de Jonge; the result of scrapping the supervisory task of municipalities during housing construction. Less work translates into lower costs, the minister instructed municipalities.

Incomprehensible differences

With an average of nearly 24% lower building fees for a single-family and detached home, the average decrease in building permit fees seems to be somewhat close to this commitment. In 16 municipalities, building fees decreased, in 4 municipalities fees went up. One municipality did not change fees.

However, this apparently favorable picture is distorted by some extreme outliers, both upward and downward. Cindy Kremer, director of Vereniging Eigen Huis: "Sometimes these huge differences give the impression that the building fees have been set 'with a wet finger'." This summer, the research on construction fees will continue among all municipalities.

In IJsselstein, construction fees for a detached house are going up by as much as 52% (+ €2,954) this year. For a single-family house in a building project of 10 houses, the building fees are going up by 25% (+ €1,237). In Alkmaar and Enkhuizen, both categories of building permits are becoming 15 to 20% more expensive.

In The Hague, the evolution of building fees is incomprehensible: for detached houses, fees shoot up by 80% (+ €1,961), while for single-family houses they drop by 28% (- €248).

In the sample, the huge decrease in the municipality of northeast Friesland by almost 98% for single-family houses (- €5,133) and 90% for detached houses (- €2,398) is exceptional. Here, the building permit for a single-family house in a project of 10 houses requires only €57.60 per house. For a single detached house, construction fees here amount to only €567.

Apartment complexes

Apartment complexes are not yet covered by the Quality Assurance Act. When building this category of homes, municipalities still perform the inspection and supervision tasks. Yet here too, large rate changes compared to last year are visible. In Enkhuizen, building fees are increasing by as much as 206%, which for a construction project of 50 apartments amounts to €3,750 higher permit fees per housing unit. In Leeuwarden, construction fees are decreasing by 27%; a cost reduction of €1,140 per apartment.

New home would not become more expensive

With the introduction of the Quality Assurance Act on Jan. 1, 2024, quality control during the construction of new homes will be done by independent experts. These costs will be in addition to municipal construction fees, but on balance, new construction homes would not become more expensive as a result, according to De Jonge. Buyers pay the fees for the building permit and the cost of quality control through the builder in the total purchase price of their new home. There is still little experience with private quality control; the number of new construction projects for which permits have been applied for this year is small, and in many cases construction has yet to begin.