The building permit in Jamundí: no curaduría, no charges

In Cali, taking out a building permit goes through a curaduría urbana (a private office licensed by the state to issue permits) and costs money before anybody has looked at the project. In Jamundí, twenty minutes away, it does not.

It is not a gap in the law or an odd exception: it is what the rules say when a municipality has no appointed curador. And it has a direct economic effect that almost nobody is counting. But it does not make the procedure free, and there is an obstacle a good deal more serious that gets little attention.

Who issues the permit in Jamundí

The directory of curadores urbanos of the Superintendencia de Notariado y Registro, updated in March 2026, carries two rows for Jamundí (Curaduría Urbana 1 and Curaduría Urbana 2), and both say the same thing in every field: "No registra", nothing on record. No curador, no address, no telephone.

Where there is no curador, Decreto 1077 de 2015 assigns the competence to "the competent municipal or district authority". In Jamundí that is the Secretaría de Planeación y Coordinación Municipal, and this is not theory: in the second quarter of 2025 that department granted 76 planning permits, according to the report the municipality itself submitted to a court.

Why no charges are payable

The expensas are what a curador urbano charges for studying and resolving the application. A municipality that issues permits cannot levy them, and it is written without ambiguity in paragraph 4 of article 2.2.6.6.8.1 of Decreto 1077 de 2015:

And it needs no interpreting: the Ministry of Housing itself publishes that very question, whether permitting can be charged for in municipalities with no curador, and answers it by citing that paragraph.

What that comes to in pesos

To give it a size, this is how it is charged in Cali. Since Decreto 1890 de 2021 the charges are assessed in UVT, the indexed tax unit, with a two-part formula: a fixed charge paid on filing, and a variable charge proportional to the area, both affected by the stratum and by a municipal factor.

The fixed charge rises with the stratum: it is around $293,000 in strata 1 and 2 and passes $1,460,000 in stratum 6. And there is a detail worth knowing before filing in Cali: the fixed charge is paid on filing and is not refunded if the permit is refused or if the applicant withdraws.

In Jamundí that entire line item is zero.

What you do pay

This is where the headline falls short if you read it quickly. That there are no curaduría charges does not mean the procedure is free: one component of the cost is missing, not all of them. The municipal tax statute of Jamundí (Acuerdo 020 de 2017) fixes the rest.

The tax carries ten-year exemptions worth checking: properties hit by disasters, restoration of listed cultural property, self-building of social housing in strata 1 and 2, and extensions and adaptations in strata 1 and 2 below a certain valuation. And if the permit expires without the works being carried out, the tax is refunded, though without interest or indexation.

What does not apply, in case you get charged for it: the Pro-Adulto Mayor levy and the Pro-Deporte rate fall on contracts with the municipality, not on permits. The Pro-Universidad levy does not exist in the municipal statute. And the fire-service surcharge is assessed with the annual property tax.

The obstacle that does matter: water

And here is what really decides whether your permit comes out, which has nothing to do with money.

In 2016 the environmental and agrarian public prosecutor for the Valle brought a class action against the Municipality of Jamundí, the CVC (the regional environmental authority) and Acuavalle, the regional water utility. The Juzgado Segundo Administrativo Oral de Cali gave judgment in November 2021 (Sentencia 125) and the Tribunal Administrativo del Valle confirmed it in December 2022. It is a judgment on the merits, not an interim measure.

Read the test carefully, because it is what hardly anybody explains properly: the filter is not geographical, it is about utilities. There are no forbidden districts. What decides is whether the plot has guaranteed supply, and that is proved with the certificate of availability. With it, you come in through one of the exceptions in the judgment; without it, you fall inside the suspension.

The exceptions the judgment itself left open include:

• —Projects already approved with services guaranteed.
• —Strengthening, modification, extension, adaptation to another use and enclosure of existing buildings. If your project is on what is already built, this covers you.
• —Urban subdivision and construction with services guaranteed.
• —Parcelación with availability guaranteed. On rural land a treatment plant of your own has to be evidenced.
• —Works of general interest in health and education.

That the suspension exists does not mean nothing is being permitted: 76 permits in a single quarter prove otherwise. It means that the Acuavalle certificate is the first document to get hold of, before commissioning a drawing.

The time limits are the same as in Cali

No curaduría does not mean a second-class procedure. The rule puts both authorities on the same clock:

Forty-five working days, counted from the moment the application is filed in legal and due form, that is, with the file complete, extendable once only by up to half as much again where the size or the complexity warrants it. If the record of observations arrives, there are 30 working days to answer, extendable by 15.

How long the permit lasts

Here there is a fact almost the whole Colombian web gets wrong, and a correction that is usually got wrong too.

It is true that Decreto 1783 de 2021 raised the validity from 24 to 36 months. But not for every permit. And saying "the permit lasts 36 months" flatly is wrong for most of the modalities.

Two more points about the extension, and both get muddled often. It is applied for no later than 30 working days before expiry (working days, not calendar days: the previous regime said calendar and it changed), with the documentation complete and a sworn statement that the works have already begun.

This has a use-by date

The absence of charges in Jamundí is not a privilege of the municipality: it follows from there being no appointed curador. Ley 388 de 1997 says it head-on: the day one is appointed, the municipal body that carries on providing the service will levy the same charges as are set for the curador.

And that day is coming closer. The Superintendencia de Notariado y Registro has an open public merit competition to fill curadurías, and Jamundí is on the list, alongside Buenaventura, Palmira, Tuluá and Yumbo. Under the addendum in force, registration closes on 16 October 2026 and the final list of admitted candidates is published on 22 February 2027.

What to do with this

1. 1Get the certificate of service availability first. Before the drawing, before the budget, before signing the contract to buy the plot. It is what decides whether your project can be permitted today.
2. 2Budget the 2% delineation tax on area times reference value, and ask the planning department about the issuing fees, which are not published.
3. 3File with the complete file. The 45 working days do not start running until the application is in legal and due form.
4. 4Check the modality of your permit before counting on 36 months. If it is an extension or a strengthening scheme, you have 24.
5. 5If the project can start this year, start it. The saving on charges is real for as long as there is no appointed curador, and that condition is not permanent.

All of the above is verified against rules and official documents as at July 2026. Procedures change; the dates in this article are the dates of its publication.