Filing Fees are used to maintain a municipality's Land Records, as enabled by State statute. Maintenance includes organizing and binding deeds, permits, and other information that runs with the land. They are charged per physical page. The cost of maintenance increases over time, and State statute was updated to increase the per page fee.
The history of Filing Fee Rates used by the City of Burlington is:
| Dates | Fee per Page |
|---|---|
| Prior to 7/1/1997 | $6.00 |
| 7/1/1997 - 6/30/2003 | $7.00 |
| 7/1/2003 - 6/30/2007 | $7.50 |
| 7/1/2007 - 6/30/2009 | $8.50 |
| 7/1/2009 - 6/30/2019 | $10.00 |
| 7/1/2019- Present | $15.00 |
Filing Fees for Certificates of Occupancy
As the result of the Vermont Supreme Court's 1997 Bianchi Decision, Certificates of Occupancy were required to be filed in the City's Land Records.
For permits applied for prior to 7/1/1998, a Certificate of Occupancy (CO) filing fee is charged upon CO request.
Starting 7/1/1998, a CO filing fee was charged at zoning permit application. This was because at the time there were no fees charged for CO's themselves, so the CO filing fee was simply added at zoning permit application. Thus two filing fees were levied - one for the permit and the other for the CO.
Starting July 1, 2009, this practice was changed and the filing fee was charged at CO request, in addition to the CO fee itself. This was because at permit application, there is a chance that the permit request would be denied, or the application could be withdrawn, leaving nothing to file in the land records.
Therefore from 7/1/1998 to 7/1/2019, the CO filing fee is NOT charged at CO request - it was already paid for at permit application.
