NA body to help remove property tables’ errors

ISLAMABAD: The subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance Revenue Economic Affairs Statistics and Privatisation on Monday decided to have on the spot observation and consultation with stakeholders for evaluation of real estate prices to help remove anomalies in the assessments.

The meeting of the committee was held under the chairmanship of MNA Mian Abdul Mannan, and was attended by MNA Syed Mustafa Mehmud, representatives from Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and real estate stakeholders.

Mannan said the committee would visit Karachi soon for a thorough discussion with the provincial revenue departments and the real stakeholders for proper assessment of properties. Similar meetings would also be held with the stakeholders of Lahore, Faisalabad, and other cities, he added.

He said the working on property prices began in 2016, and the process would be complete within three years. He said the evaluation was not focussed on enhancing revenues; rather it was aimed to properly evaluate the prices of the property sector.

He, however, dispelled the impression that the number of property transactions had fallen since this exercise was started, and added that the number of transactions had actually gone up during the period.

Mannan said the committee was ready to addresses the issues of real estate, however, he added, it was its right to verify the prices and value of properties in different cities of the country.

MNA Mustafa Mehmud said that proper evaluation of properties was the need of the hour to check black money. “It is unfortunate that the properties worth millions of rupees are shown at lower prices in the documentation,” he added.

Earlier, the real estate representatives highlighted various issues of property assessment. They said the evaluation made by the FBR was higher than the Deputy Commissioner (DC) and market prices.

However, FBR advised them to send the details of the schemes where FBR evaluation was more than the DC prices and also send comparison of FBR evaluation with DC as well as market rates.