S-4947.1  _______________________________________________

                    SUBSTITUTE SENATE BILL 6373

          _______________________________________________

State of Washington      54th Legislature     1996 Regular Session

By Senate Committee on Financial Institutions & Housing (originally sponsored by Senators Prentice, Wood, Loveland and Long)

Read first time 02/01/96.

Providing for a new auditor's fee to help fund low-income housing projects.

    AN ACT Relating to county auditor recording fees; and amending RCW 36.18.010.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

    Sec. 1.  RCW 36.18.010 and 1995 c 246 s 37 are each amended to read as follows:

    County auditors or recording officers shall collect the following fees for their official services:

    For recording instruments, for the first page, legal size (eight and one-half by fourteen inches or less), five dollars plus an additional fee of five dollars to be retained and used by the county solely for low-income housing activities eligible for assistance under chapters 43.185 and 43.185A RCW; for each additional legal size page, one dollar; the fee for recording multiple transactions contained in one instrument will be calculated individually for each transaction requiring separate indexing as required under RCW 65.04.050.  The additional five-dollar fee related to low-income housing activities shall not apply to an assignment of previously recorded deeds of trust;

    For preparing and certifying copies, for the first legal size page, three dollars; for each additional legal size page, one dollar;

    For preparing noncertified copies, for each legal size page, one dollar;

    For administering an oath or taking an affidavit, with or without seal, two dollars;

    For issuing a marriage license, eight dollars, (this fee includes taking necessary affidavits, filing returns, indexing, and transmittal of a record of the marriage to the state registrar of vital statistics) plus an additional five-dollar fee for use and support of the prevention of child abuse and neglect activities to be transmitted monthly to the state treasurer and deposited in the state general fund plus an additional ten-dollar fee to be transmitted monthly to the state treasurer and deposited in the state general fund.  The legislature intends to appropriate an amount at least equal to the revenue generated by this fee for the purposes of the displaced homemaker act, chapter 28B.04 RCW;

    For searching records per hour, eight dollars;

    For recording plats, fifty cents for each lot except cemetery plats for which the charge shall be twenty-five cents per lot; also one dollar for each acknowledgment, dedication, and description:  PROVIDED, That there shall be a minimum fee of twenty-five dollars per plat;

    For recording of miscellaneous records, not listed above, for first legal size page, five dollars; for each additional legal size page, one dollar;

    For modernization and improvement of the recording and indexing system, a surcharge as provided in RCW 36.22.170.

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