Stamp duty cannot be charged in retrospect on the resale of old flats.

The Bombay High Court, while hearing a petition of a South Mumbai flat, asked authorities to stop levying duty on the buyers of old properties.

The Bombay High Court, while hearing a petition of a South Mumbai flat, asked authorities to stop levying duty on the buyers of old properties.The Bombay High Court has held that the authorities cannot collect stamp duty, for inadequately stamped past documents of any property, at the time of its subsequent sale. The high court heard a case regarding the resale of a 3,300-sq-feet apartment in Tahnee Heights Cooperative Housing Society at Napean Sea Road. The last time they sold this apartment was in 1979, when the owners had paid a stamp duty of Rs. Ten. The flat was auctioned in 2018, and the buyer, Vijay Jindal, approached the registration office for registration of the documents.

The collector of stamp duty refused to register the new sale agreement stating that it was not adequately stamped. The stamp duty alone was around Rs. Two crores, based on the present ready reckoner rates. As they bought the property through a court receiver auction, the buyer approached the Bombay High Court to direct the sellers to bear the liability on past stamp duty, as the co-owners had refused to take the cost.

Bombay High Court Justice Gautam Patel, on December 13, 2018, ordered that stamp duty should not be collected retrospectively for a property that was sold when the law was different. There are thousands of old flat agreements that are not only registered but also not stamped, and hence when selling takes place at the present rate, and the collector levies penalty charges. The order was to end such practices.