$2.00 Additional Recording Fee

Yesterday the County Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 with Brooks Firestone being absent to add an additional fee when recording certain documents. The additional money raised by these fees is going to pay for a new Real Estate Fraud division in the District Attorney's office. The new fee will begin being charged on August 1st and it will be charged whenever someone is recording a Deed of Trust, an Assignment of a Deed of Trust, a Reconveyance, a Request for Notice, and a Notice of Default. At a meeting I was at today a Grant Deed was mentioned as one of the documents that would incur that additional fee and I have found out it won't be. The estimate of money this should raise is about $91,000. This fee is on a county by county basis and not all counties are using their authority to implement it. I think our local government should have found another way to go about raising this additional money rather than burdening an entire industry with this fee. There are enough fees as it is when it comes to refinancing or transferring property and as of August 1st there will be one more.