( Cost )
The price is not the price
Ask what a unit costs and you get one number. The real answer adds four government charges and six professional fees, and they do not all fall due on the same day. Put your own price in.
Bodaiju's licensed advertising range runs RM299,000 to RM659,000. Any figure works here.
( Waiting on a price )
Put the figure you were quoted into the box. Every number on this page fills in from it, including the ones further down. The arithmetic runs in your own browser, so nothing you type is sent anywhere or kept.
( Cash you have to find )
Your own funds plus every fee. About at today's rate.
( What the unit costs in the end )
The price plus of charges, which is % on top. Part of it is the bank's money, not yours.
Foreign buyers are usually capped near 60 to 70%.
( Timing )
Three moments, years apart
Every other calculator hands you one lump sum, which makes the barrier to entry look far higher than it is. The money leaves in three separate moments, and the largest one arrives years after you sign.
- On signingDay one
- Through constructionTwo to three years
- When the title issuesYears after handover
The deposit comes out of your own funds rather than on top of them, so the three lines always add back to the cash figure above.
Every line, and where it comes from
( To the government )
- Transfer stamp duty, 8%
- Johor state consent
- Consent application
- Transfer registration
- Government total
Rates from the Johor land rules Schedule 6, Series V, in force 1 April 2026, and the Stamp Act as amended by the Finance Act 2025. You can check the consent figures yourself at ptj.johor.gov.my. The RM1,000,000 floor itself, and what a below-floor sale requires in writing, is covered in the minimum price explainer.
( To your solicitor and the bank )
- Agreement, SRO Table B
- Loan documents
- Consent application, from
- Notice of transfer
- Service tax, 8%
- Stamp duty on the loan
- Professional total
Conveyancing runs on Table B of the Solicitors' Remuneration Order 2023, not the Table A scale most Malaysian calculators quote. Bodaiju is sold under the Housing Development Act, which is what puts it on the cheaper scale. The Order does not allow discounting either way.
( Adjust the assumptions )
Fetched from the European Central Bank's daily reference rates. Change it and it stays changed.
What this leaves out
A total presented as complete when it is not is the one mistake a page like this cannot come back from. Everything below is real money that is deliberately not in the figures above, because it depends on choices we cannot make for you or on documents we have not seen.
- Perfecting the transfer and the charge when the strata title issues, years after the sale: the Remuneration Order prices these at up to 25% of the scale fee with your original solicitor, up to 50% with a new one, plus the land office's RM120 charge registration. At Bodaiju prices budget roughly RM650 to RM1,900 for the transfer side alone.
- Interest on the loan during construction. The bank charges progressively on each drawn stage, and over two to three years of works this is usually the largest cost between signing and vacant possession.
- One-off deposits at vacant possession: water and electricity meter deposits, and the maintenance-charge and sinking-fund deposits collected under the Strata Management Act 2013.
- Valuation fees, bank processing fees and any mortgage reducing term assurance.
- Disbursements billed at cost by the solicitor, such as searches, registration and travelling.
- Third Schedule subsidiary instruments, charged at 10% of the full scale each, minimum RM500 and maximum RM2,000, where the financing needs more than one document.
- Items 29 and 34 of the Johor schedule, the newspaper notice and the Gazette notice, both charged at actual cost. Whether either is raised on an ordinary purchase is not answerable from the schedule itself.
- The nominal RM10 stamped on the agreement and the deed of assignment before the strata title issues.
- Quit rent, parcel rent, assessment and maintenance charges, which begin at vacant possession.
What the figures assume
- Duty is assessed on the higher of price or market value. For a new sale from a licensed developer at a fixed price the two are normally the same, and that is what these figures assume.
- Rates are the law in force in August 2026. The transfer-stage charges are governed by the law in force when the strata title issues, years from now, and the foreign duty rate has changed twice in the last three years. Neither direction is predictable.
- The solicitor's fees for the consent application and the s.160 notice are the prescribed minimums, and the Order does not permit discounting. Your own bill can be higher, never lower.
- The solicitor completing the sale is assumed to act to the end of the SPA stage; the later perfection work is excluded and listed above.
What is still being argued
- Schedule H clause 33(3) says the DEVELOPER shall bear the cost of obtaining State Authority consent to transfer, if any.
- Whether that captures the section 433B foreign consent, which is the RM50,000 plus RM2,000 above, or only a restriction-in-interest consent, is genuinely arguable. Market practice says the buyer pays. Schedule H is a prescribed form and contracting out of it is void. Ask the developer against the clause number rather than assuming.
- LHDN's own statutory declaration templates exclude SOHO and service apartments from the residential definition.
- The Finance Act 2025 includes them, so the rate here is 8%. The Bar Council says the statute prevails and has written to LHDN. The definition also turns on the unit being solely for use as a dwelling, so the argument can cut either way; 8% is the conservative figure to budget on.
- Medini sits on a Private Lease Scheme, and the master lessor's own documents may price their consent to a dealing.
- Any such fee is contractual, outside the Johor schedule, and could apply to Malaysian buyers too. We have not seen the lease documents that would answer it. Ask the developer for the master lease's dealing provisions in writing.
None of this is legal or tax advice, and we are not your solicitor. Take these figures to a Malaysian conveyancer and have them checked against your own agreement before you commit to anything.
Asked. Answered.
Every figure in these answers is produced by the same engine that draws the calculator above, so the two can never disagree with each other.
( 1 )How much does a foreigner pay on top of the price to buy property in Johor?
On a RM299,000 serviced apartment in Medini the government charges alone come to RM76,520, which is 25.6% of the price. That is transfer stamp duty at 8% (RM23,920), the Johor state consent (RM50,000), RM2,000 to lodge the application and RM600 to register the transfer. Solicitors' fees and the service tax on them sit on top. The share falls as the price rises, because the consent is a flat figure rather than a percentage.
( 2 )What is the Johor state consent fee for a foreign buyer?
For a serviced apartment or SOHO sold below RM1,000,000 it is a flat RM50,000, plus RM2,000 to lodge the application. The figure is item 30.2.1 of the Johor land rules Schedule 6, Series V, approved by the State Authority on 25 February 2026 and in force from 1 April 2026. At or above RM1,000,000 the flat figure stops applying and the general rule governs instead: 3% of the price or RM30,000, whichever is higher.
( 3 )Is the foreign buyer stamp duty in Malaysia 4% or 8%?
8% on residential property, for instruments executed on or after 1 January 2026 under the Finance Act 2025. The Act's definition of residential property names service apartments, so a Medini unit is charged at 8% rather than the 4% non-residential rate. Malaysian permanent residents are excluded from the 8% and pay the citizen scale. Note that LHDN's own declaration templates currently exclude service apartments from that definition, and the Bar Council says the statute prevails, so expect the point to be argued at the counter.
( 4 )When is stamp duty due on a property that is still being built?
Not when you sign. With no strata title in existence yet, the agreement carries only nominal duty, and the 8% is assessed years later when the title issues, on the value at the date of the agreement. The state consent falls due in that same window. On a RM299,000 unit that is RM77,168 arriving long after the RM35,894.72 you paid at signing, which is the single most misunderstood thing about buying under construction.
( 5 )How much are legal fees when buying from a developer in Malaysia?
Less than most Malaysian calculators say. A sale under the Housing Development Act runs on Table B of the Solicitors' Remuneration Order 2023, which is 50% to 75% of the Table A scale those calculators quote. On RM299,000 the conveyancing fee is RM2,616.25 rather than the RM3,737.50 Table A would give. Service tax of 8% is charged on the professional fee, not on the duty or the consent. The Order does not permit a discount on Table B, so it is the fee rather than a starting point.
( 6 )Does the buyer or the developer pay the state consent fee?
It is genuinely unsettled, it is worth RM52,540, and your own agreement decides it. Schedule H clause 33(3) says the developer shall bear the costs of obtaining State Authority consent to transfer. Market practice says the buyer pays. Schedule H is a prescribed form and contracting out of it is void, so the point is live. Ask the developer against the clause number before you budget, and set the switch on this page to match the answer you get.
Bring the number to the table
The gallery hands you today's availability and the current price list on paper, and the foreign-buyer costs written out. Come with your own figures and check ours against theirs.