KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 16): The Pahang Bar has described the "office fee" charged by the state Land and Mines Office and district land offices for registration of property dealings as “exorbitant and unreasonable”, reported The Star today.

Pahang Bar chairman Muthukumar Suya Kumanan said the charge hike “came as a shock” as “there was neither prior notice nor consultation with the relevant stakeholders in the real property industry, especially lawyers dealing with transfers of properties”.

Muthukumar told the daily that the charge increase was effective from Dec 1, 2020 under the Pahang Land (Amendment) Rules 2020 (2020 Amendment) and “was only announced on Jan 4 and took effect immediately on the first day of the working week of 2021”.

"This has caused much dissatisfaction amongst many law firms attending to the registration of transfers and their respective clients, especially those who have already paid the stamp duty before the close of 2020 but are unable to register the transfers due to the queue for dates for presentation of registration of transfers under the appointment system, practised since Dec 21, 2020 by all the registering land authorities in the state due to the fear of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Muthukumar.

"Moreover, some who face delays in registering due to the appointment system may be penalised unfairly for delayed registration based on the new rates," he added.

Muthukumar also told The Star that the 2020 Amendment placed Pahang with the highest registration fee rates for transfers compared to other states “in the peninsula with relatively high registration fees like Kedah and Penang”.

He added that it “dwarfed metropolitan Kuala Lumpur” which only charged a standard rate of RM100.

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