Texas builders found a new way to scr*w consumers

Here's a new concept in real estate: Buy a house, and when you go to sell it years later, owe the original developer or builder 1 percent of the sales price.

Freehold Capital Partners, a company started in Texas, is selling developers across the country on a plan that would attach a private transfer fee to homes, allowing developers to profit for generations.

The fee, written into neighborhood restrictions, would encumber the property for 99 years and throw 1 percent of the sale price back to the developer — or his or her estate or another investor — and Freehold each time the home changes hands.

Don't developers get all kinds of goodies already? Who pays for the improvements to their land? Mostly, taxpayers. Now the buyers get to pay even more.