Property and Land Taxes in Malaysia

If you are wondering what the property and land taxes are related to a house here in Malaysia, they are low compared to the US and many other places.

There are two types of property ownership in Malaysia Leasehold and Freehold. Leasehold is when you lease the land for a period of time often 99 years and then it is renewable [or not] at the end of the lease. The other is Freehold where you own the property outright. We prefer Freehold and were lucky to find a freehold property we like and could afford. For more info on freehold/leasehold check here. By the way, most properties available in KL are leasehold. Foreigners can own either Freehold or Leasehold.

There are two main costs associated with property and land ownership in Malaysia. One is called the Assessment Tax which is a tax generated twice a year by the local Majlis Perbandaran where the property is located. Assessment tax is collected by the local authorities for the 'provision of services to the residents'. The amount and classification of properties varies from state to state and within the state. In most states the amount of the assessment tax a house owner pays is calculated on the annual value of the of the property and the annual value of the property is the total value of rents if the house is rented out in the open market. If this sounds confusing, I agree. If you want more info. you better do some googling.

The other payment is for the Quit Rent (rent is a deceiving word here) which is generated in our case by the Kerajaan Negeri Sembilan Darul Khusus. This is a once a year payment. From what I understand, Quit Rent is a form of land tax collected by the Malaysian State Governments. It is imposed on owners of all land. The amount of the quit rent varies from state to state and even within each state. For more info. check here.

The Mail (POS) is so unreliable, we have not received either bill which were supposed to arrive before or just at the beginning of the year. So yesterday I went to both offices and paid my current bills.

Our bungalow has a Quit Rent cost of 218 RM per year and a Assessment cost of 780 RM total per year. The total costs related to the state in regard to our home per year is 998 RM (about $327 US Dollars). This sure is better than to $4,700 US dollars I was paying in New York (worse the current owner now pays $8,800 US dollars on the same house as it was reassessed)!