A house build budget needs to cover far more than the builder's price: site purchase and legal costs, design and certification fees, planning and building control fees, development contributions, utility connections, VAT, external works, furnishing and a contingency. Missing any of these is the most common cause of a project running over budget.
The construction contract is only one line in a development budget. Statutory costs such as the planning application fee, development contributions levied by the local authority as a condition of permission, and building control fees all fall outside it, as do utility connection charges from ESB Networks, Uisce Éireann and telecoms providers.
Professional costs — architectural design, structural engineering, assigned certifier duties, BER assessment, site investigation, surveys and legal fees — also sit outside the builder's figure. So does VAT, unless quotations are expressly VAT inclusive.