FREE MALAYSIA TODAY. 1ST NOVEMBER: State housing exco member Jafni Md Shukor said only about 2% of the hundreds of thousands of property owners have submitted objections to the hike, some of which are more than 100%.
Less than 2% of property owners in five municipalities in the state that will see a hike in assessment rates next year have objected to the increases so far, according to Johor executive councillor Jafni Shukor.
The state housing committee chairman said this could be construed as property owners accepting the decision for they understood that it was based on the current market value of their houses, which had appreciated over the last 10 years.
“In the areas under the Johor Bahru city council (MBJB), Pengerang municipal council and Kluang municipal council, where the objection period has ended, 98% of the hundreds of thousands of property owners did not officially oppose.
“This shows that they are happy with the decision. I think they understand that their property values have gone up since the last time we carried out the valuation exercise 10 years ago,” Jafni told FMT.
He said most of those who objected in Johor Bahru, Pengerang and Kluang were from the T20 and M40 households.
The deadline for objection in the city councils of Iskandar Puteri and Pasir Gudang is Nov 15.
Recently, property owners in the city councils of Johor Baru, Pasir Gudang and Iskandar Puteri and the municipal councils of Kluang and Pengerang, were notified of the increases, which are more than 100% in some cases.
Some ratepayers in these municipalities have taken to social media and met their local councillors to complain about the steep rate hikes.
A house owner in Bandar Seri Alam, which falls under the Pasir Gudang municipality, said he had been paying RM760 annually over the last few years but it would increase to about RM1,300 next year.
“This is an increase of more than 70%. Doing this at one go puts a heavy burden on house owners at a time when we have just recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic. It should have been gradual,” he told FMT.
He said while he agreed the property values had gone up, the state government could have advised the local authorities to implement the increase in stages.
Commenting on this, Jafni said this review was only done 10 years after the last one, although the law allowed councils to revise rates every five years.
Citing MBJB statistics, he said of the 350,970 properties, 43.8% or 153,620 would not be charged higher rates as their property values had not gone up.
“And of the remainder, rates on 75,406 of them will see increases of 25% and below. These are from the B40 households. So, you can see that it is only based on property value and nothing else,” he said.