New land values by June

New land values by June

Deccan Herald

A realty boom in the State has led to the Finance Minister announcing a revision of guidance values of land in Bangalore Urban district and in all district headquarters across the State. In real terms, this means you would pay more every time you register property in any of these places.

A revision of guidance values has begun by the valuation committee and the Stamps and Registration department is likely to notify new land values by June (perhaps earlier).

The move comes barely six months after a similar revision was undertaken in Bangalore and six other cities (Bangalore, Mysore, Hubli-Dharwad, Mangalore, Belgaum, Gulbarga and Davangere) in August last.

Finance Minister Siddaramaiah’s announcement on Thursday that new guidance values will be notified soon has, thus, raised the hackles of realtors in the city.
“This may be beneficial to the State exchequer but frequent hiking of guidance values is not good. True, we are going through a boom now, but prices won’t be stable forever,” observed one realtor. The move may increase market values of land in some areas too, he felt.

Then again, there is no hike in registration rates -- only that existing rates, when applied to new values, will sum up to a higher registration cost.

Mr Siddaramaiah further extended full exemption of stamp duty and registration fee on loan and credit documents executed by farmers to avail agricultural loans. Farmers got another sop, with the government reducing the fee on encumbrance certificates from prevailing rates to a maximum of Rs 50.

This will cost the Stamps and Registration department only a meagre loss of over Rs 20 crore in revenue (only a drop in the sea, when compared to the estimated Rs 2,180 crore revenue of the department for 2005-06).