Stamp Duty

Stamp duty is a government tax levied on legal documents for transactions involving assets, such as real estate, shares, or mortgages. It is an upfront, one-time fee to legally recognize and record the transfer of ownership.

This method was changed by the Stamp Duty (Special Provisions) Act, 2000, which mandated that stamp duty and other fees be paid in monetary form. The Act explicitly made previous methods of using postage stamps on legal instruments ineffective. A subsequent act, Act No. 5 of 2003, was passed to validate the cancellation of postage stamps that had been affixed to instruments to pay stamp duty.