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Many of us think of building the house of our dreams, but doubts could stop us when it comes to making it come true. The most important and frequent is how much it will cost. Please read the text below to find out how much it costs to build a house and do it from scratch.

Purchase of the parcel

The first thing you have to find to build a house is the land, and you can spend a large part of the budget on it. If you have to buy a plot, it can cost up to half the value of the project, even more, depending on its morphology, location, and buildable area.

It is advisable to visit the town hall before buying the plot to find out what type of land it has and the urban regulations that concern it. You must also go to the Property Registry to check the status of the land.

Be prepared for additional costs like public deeds in the Notary office. It is between 600€ and 875€
Change of owner in the Property Registry, which is calculated based on the plot and regulated by the State.
Another cost is 21% VAT or the Property Transfer Tax, between 6 and 10% depending on the autonomous community. In addition, you will have to pay the Tax on Documented Legal Acts, around 1% of the purchase, which also varies depending on the community.

Before you can start to build on the plot, a topographic survey and a geotechnical study is required. With this, the characteristics of the land are precise. The geotechnical research has to be prepared by a technician and endorsed by his professional association. Its price ranges between 800€ and 1,200€.

Hire the architect

The cost of hiring an architect for the project varies greatly. There is nothing established. You can find architects from 5,000€ to more than 30,000€. The prestige and the characteristics of the project are the two main variables that affect the final price.

Preliminary draft

The client exposes his needs to the architect, who prepares a series of photomontages and plans until the client is satisfied.

Basic project

It is about a set of plans, the memory, and the budget advance. Then, together with a series of documents that vary in each municipality, they serve to request the building license. When the permit is requested, you will have to pay fees and pay the Tax on Constructions, Installations, and Works (ICIO). Taxes will vary in each municipality, but usually, around 4% of the budget advance appears in the basic project (an estimate of the total cost of building the house.

Execution project

The facilities are defined, the structure calculated, and all the finishes are specified. Then, you need to hire the architect who will be the director of execution during the work and execute project specifications. It is something like the house shopping list, a detailed list of everything you need to build the house. Then, with the specification, the builders will do the calculation. Then you will find out the actual price of construction of the house.

Rigger and safety coordinator

The surveyors take care of the technical questions of the construction. The average price of a rigger is about 3,000€ per work. And the security coordinator charges another 3,000€, and it can be done by both an architect and a technical architect, as indicated by the General Council of Technical Architecture.

Construction site

Construction can begin once you choose the construction company and obtain the building license. The usual thing for a single-family home is that the work lasts between 12-14 months, in the case of houses built in the traditional way, and three to four months for prefabricated houses.

Do you have to pay taxes?

Before starting the work, you have to pay:

• Tax on Constructions, Installations, and Works (ICIO) and taxes to the city council. This percentage of the work budget varies in each municipality between 3 and 5%.
• On the other hand, you also have to pay VAT, which for an individual who builds his own house (Self-promotion) is 10%. This cost will be paid month by month, as the work progresses.

After finishing the construction, you need to pay:

• A city council first-occupancy license fee is around 0.5-1% of the budget.
• Deed the house before a notary and registered it in the Property Registry. Notary and registrar fees are around 0.5% of the home value.
• Tax on Documented Legal Acts for the declaration of new construction. 1.5% of the cost value of the new construction.
• Register the water and electricity supplies and request the certificate of occupancy. All this is usually around 500-700€.

In short, giving an exact price is very complicated since it depends on the terrain to the finishes. Furthermore, all the experts consulted point out the rise in the price of materials, which leaves even more uncertainty about the final cost. The price of the promotion in bulk is already 1,300 euros / m2 when last year it was around 1,000 euros / m2 as inflation continues to rise in construction.