Building a dream home is an important milestone for many. Financially and otherwise, it requires a lot of effort and proper budgeting is something that can tremendously help you with the same. But one thing that many people forget while budgeting is, the stamp duty and registration charges. This amount may add up to be significant and might make you scramble for money at the last moment. The best way to avoid this is by understanding and calculating your stamp duty so that you can add this to your budget. Let us take a look at stamp duty and see how you can take the help of a stamp duty calculator.

What is stamp duty?

Simply put, stamp duty is a tax that the state government collects during the transfer of the property. This can happen when you buy or sell a property. Usually, the buyer is liable to pay the tax.

• Stamp duty during a property ownership transfer is applied to all the states of India. Moreover, it is an important step and land registration is said to be complete only when stamp duty is paid.
• The state government imposesstamp duty and hence, the rate is different for different states. In general, this can vary between 5% to 12% according to the state.

What affects stamp duty?

Although stamp duty is applicable statewide, it need not be the same for everyone. Several factors play a decisive role here.The age of your property has an important role. Newer properties attract more stamp duty than older ones. Your gender and age also play a role. Women are given stamp duty rebates to promote land ownership among them and senior citizens have a rebate.

The type of property you have and where it is situated also matter. Residential properties have lesser stamp duty than commercial ones. Within residential properties too, multi-storey buildings tend to have more stamp duty payable. Also, buildings and properties in villages attract lesser taxes than ones in towns and cities do.

How to calculate stamp duty?

Manually taking in all these factors to arrive at a number might be difficult;hence, there are online stamp duty calculators. They will ask you for all the above information to tell you the amount you will have to pay as stamp duty. These calculators are easily available on different websites so that you can calculate stamp duty online with ease.

Pay the right duty to avoid complications

Many people tend to document lesser land value to save on stamp duty, but it is illegal and can lead to a number of complications. Instead, calculate stamp duty and plan accordingly so that you can budget for it and comfortably pay too. Doing otherwise could hamper your peace of mind and that could be the last thing you want while you move to your new haven. Use stamp duty calculator and make sure you pay the right duty!

Thus, having read everything about stamp duty & how to calculate it, you are now ready to buy your own house & avail a home loan to fund that easily