The fair price of landed property is being increased by 50 per cent in the State for levying stamp duty on a transaction.
In press release, the Chief Minister’s office said this decision, taken by the Cabinet at its meeting on Wednesday, was because the market value of land had gone up very high since the fair prices were last revised in April 2010. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India and the State Expenditure Committee, in their reports, had mentioned this as an issue depriving the State of the full revenue receivable from property transactions.
It was pointed out in the Cabinet that there were many complaints regarding the existing notified fair prices. For instance, properties facing a national highway and those in the same localities without direct access to the highway were notified as of the same fair prices. The Cabinet decided to introduce two arrangements to rectify such complaints.
First is to give the District Collector powers to fix the fair price on the basis of the average of the prices carried by five plots close to the one over which a dispute over the fair price is raised. On such petitions, the Collectors will have to take decisions within 60 days.
The second is to give the party purchasing a property a ‘conditional price assessment’ option. Under this, registration of a property will be allowed after levying two-third of the 50 per cent increase in stamp duty and registration fee.
The remaining one-third of the stamp duty and registration fee on the increased portion of the fair price will have to be remitted by the party in the treasury. It will be returned to the party with interest if the District Collector, on examination of the complaint, finds that the notified fair price is high.
The press release said that, for instance, a property now carrying a notified fair price of Rs.1 lakh will be deemed as carrying a new fair price of Rs.1.5 lakh because of the 50 per cent increase in fair value being introduced. For this property, stamp duty (at 6 per cent) will come to Rs.9,000 and registration fee (at two per cent) Rs.3000. Under the conditional price assessment option, the property’s value will be conditionally fixed at Rs.1,33,330.
Stamp duty for this value will come to Rs.8,000 and registration fee Rs.2,667 and these will have to be remitted at the time of registration of the property.
The party will also be required to remit in the treasury the remaining sum of Rs.1,000 towards stamp duty and Rs.333 towards registration fee and these amounts will be returned to the party if his or her complaint about the property not carrying the newly fixed fair price is found justifiable by the District Collector.
