New fee for documents will help housing

Published 6:00 am Saturday, August 9, 2003

Folks heading to the Island County Auditor’s Office will notice a $10 additional fee for all documents recorded through the office, a new surcharge that benefits low-income families in need of housing.

People needing to record documents such as liens, mortgages and deeds of trust will pay the additional $10 surcharge. Exceptions to the surcharge are for marriage licenses and documents such as assignments of deed of trust and appointment of a successor trustee.

Money raised from the recording surcharge will go to local and statewide housing programs.

In Island County, housing officials expect to see between $100,000 and $140,000 this year in additional revenue for housing programs.

Twenty-five percent of the surcharge money the county receives can go toward the operating costs for emergency shelters and licenced youth shelters. This piece of the money can also be used to finance operating and maintenance costs of low-income housing developments, according to an interlocal agreement that administers the fund.

The remaining 75 percent of the county’s money will go toward construction or rehabilitation of low-income housing projects.

Island County Housing Director Steve Gulliford said that nonprofit groups that focus on such housing can apply for the funds.

An affordable housing advisory board comprised of the mayors of the three towns and representatives of industries such affordable housing construction and commercial real estate financing recommends how the fund is distributed.

The applications for the funds are due in December and, after a board review, the Board of Island County Commissioners makes final approval of how the money is doled out.

The surcharge was added to the recording fee last year by the state Legislature.

Island County Auditor Suzanne Sinclair said there has been little reaction to the new fee because the average person doesn’t know the fee was changed. Businesses such as title companies simply pass that cost on to the consumer.

“The Legislature found an unobtrusive way to raise money,” Sinclair said.

She opposed the additional surcharge when she testified in front of the legislature last year.

She argued that the fee charges for a service that is loosely connected to low-income housing and that such fund-raising should be done in a more open forum to drum up more broad-based support.

The county recorded 35,700 documents last year. Forty percent the money raised from the new $10 fee goes into the state’s housing trust fund.

The Island County Housing Authority is applying for the housing trust fund to pay for a new shelter that will be jointly operated by the Housing Authority, Citizen’s Against Domestic Abuse and the Opportunity Council.

Gulliford said the money the housing authority is applying for helps fund construction projects while the surcharge money going to the state will be used to administer the trust fund and to help assist paying operational costs of low-income housing developments.

Corine Knudsen, managing director of the Housing Finance Unit for the state Department of Community Trade and Economic Development, said the fund helps groups that can’t get enough rent from low-income tenants to maintain the housing.

She added that for organizations to be eligible for the maintenance and operation, they have to have received capital funds from the trust fund in the past, must serve families that have an income that is 30 percent of the median area income and show a need for the money — especially since the application process is competitive.

“There’s going to be a lot more applying than we have money for,” Knudson said.

The state has raised $4.5 million for the fund since the surcharge took effect in July 2002.