The state government hiked stamp duty for transfer of registration of immovable property. While the revenue department kept the stamp duty in the first slab unchanged, it has significantly increased duty for the other slabs by 50 basis points.
The move has drawn the ire of the real estate industry, which has accused the state government of ignoring the demands of the sector.
The revenue department said that it aims to “reduce the stamp duty chargeable on conveyance”, but the conveyance charges have actually become more expensive, said builders.
Where the conveyance amount does not exceed Rs 50 lakh, the stamp duty has been kept unchanged at 3%. But if the value exceeds Rs 50 lakh but does not exceed Rs 75 lakh, the stamp duty has been increased from 3.5% to 4%. If the value is less than Rs 1 crore, the stamp duty has been hiked from 4% to 4.5%.
For conveyance where the value exceeds Rs 1 crore but is less than Rs 5 crore, the duty shall be 5%. It used to be 4.5% earlier.
The government has also introduced a new slab for luxury homes and mega-projects where the conveyance value exceeds Rs 5 crore. Such projects will have to pay stamp duty of 6%.
“There is a long-standing demand to rationalise the stamp duty and registration fee for cooperative societies, but the govt has ignored that request and instead raised stamp duty across board. We are no longer surprised by the arbitrariness of government decisions,” said CREDAI president Nilesh Salkar.
The stamp duty was last tweaked in November 2019 by the Pramod Sawant government.