MOT and Stamp Duty in Malaysia

There are important costs in the home purchasing process that you need to factor in, especially towards the end of the transaction. These are variable, third-party fees that are often referred to as closing costs. Ignore them and you may risk financial setbacks and disappointment in realising your dreams of owning a home.

Below are a few significant closing costs that you need to include in your property budget planning:

1. Memorandum of Transfer (MOT)

An MOT forms part of the documentary package that a buyer of a new property (strata or individual title) must sign in order to transfer the ownership of the property from the developer (or in the case of a subsale property, from the proprietor) to its new owner.

Oftentimes, if a bank loan is taken out to finance the purchase of the property, the MOT is prepared and signed together with the Sale and Purchase Agreement and loan documents. This way, the house buyer would be spared the hassle of multiple visits to the lawyer’s office to sign the documents. An exception to this is when a property is still under construction, the house buyer will sign the MOT once the strata or individual title has been issued.

While the signing of the MOT confirms the intention to transfer ownership, in reality, the MOT only comes into play when the name of the new owner needs to be registered on the strata or individual title by the land authorities.

2. Stamp Duty

An unavoidable cost in real estate purchases, stamp duty is the tax placed on your property documents during the sale or transfer of the property – as specified under the First Schedule of Stamp Duty Act 1949. The tax includes stamp duty on the Sale and Purchase Agreements (SPA) of your property and stamp duty for the Memorandum of Transfer (MOT), both of which are calculated based on the purchase price. You will also need to pay stamp duty on your loan agreement based on a flat rate of 0.5% of the total loan.

The sale or transfer of properties in Malaysia which are chargeable with stamp duty must be stamped within 30 days from the date of the execution (property transaction )

During Budget 2019, the government announced a stamp duty hike for properties costing more than RM1 million, where the rate was increased from 3% to 4% – this came into effect on 1 July 2019. The latest stamp duty rates on the SPA & MOT are calculated on a tiered basis as below.

How is stamp duty calculated in Malaysia?

For instance, when purchasing a property which costs RM750,000, you will have to pay a total of:

{(First RM100,000 X 1%) + (Next RM400,000 X 2%) + (Remaining RM250,000 X 3%) } + 0.5% of loan amount (90% of RM750,000)
= {RM1,000 + RM8,000 + RM7,500} + 0.5% X (RM675,000)
= RM16,500 + RM3,375
=RM19,875

New Stamp Duty Exemptions in 2020

However, there are a few stamp duty exemptions available for home buyers – PM Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin announced during the short-term economic recovery plan (PENJANA) briefing on 5 June that the government will be extending the HOC 2020. The HOC which previously ended in December 2019 will now be made available from 1 June 2020 until 31 May 2021. Home buyers will get to enjoy stamp duty waivers for the purchase of new launch properties priced between RM300,000 and RM2.5 million.

Budget 2021 Stamp Duty Exemption For First-Time Buyers

Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz announced during the tabling of Budget 2021 on 6 November that stamp duty exemptions on the memorandum of transfer documents (MOT) and loan agreements will be provided for first-time home buyers. The exemption will apply for the purchase of a residential property from 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2025, for homes priced up to RM500,000. It was stated that the Sales and Purchase Agreement (SPA) must be executed and signed within the stipulated period.

A full stamp duty exemption on a RM500,000 home will provide you RM11,250 in savings!

SOURCE FROM: iProperty