KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 2 — A team of 10 lawyers will sue Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) on behalf of property owners in the city in a bid to stay the local authority’s hand on a contentious increase to city taxes.

Announcing the decision yesterday, National House Buyers Association (HBA) secretary-general Chang Kim Loong, a lawyer himself, added that the KL Mayor and DBKL’s advisory board would also be sued.

Calling it public interest litigation, Chang said the lawyers would begin by poring over the Auditor-General’s Report on DBKL’s financial performance over the past 10 years.

“We have 10 lawyers who are ready to fight this battle,” he said to a cheering crowd at an ad hoc meeting of the Overseas Union Garden (OUG) residents’ association here yesterday.

Chang later told reporters that the suit, tentatively to be filed next month, would demand access to DBKL’s accounts from the past decade for a team of forensic auditors to vet through.

He said the lawyers would also sue on the technicality that DBKL should not have sent notices of increased property valuation to the residents, without prior consultation.

At the same meeting, some 400 property owners from the OUG township here pledged to swamp DBKL under an avalanche of letters to challenge a controversial increase to property taxes in the city.

The proposed increase in assessment led to public outcry in recent weeks, after property owners received notices from the local authority informing them of hikes between 100 and 250 per cent to their land valuation.

The issue was exacerbated by the confusion arising from the conflicting announcements made that has left ratepayers uncertain about how much and when they must fork out for their bi-annual assessment payments.

The latest being Federal Territories Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor telling owners to treat the notices they received from DBKL as unofficial letters informing them of the increase in property valuation.

But he also encouraged property owners to send in letters of complaints by December 17, after which, a final notice of the new property valuation will be issued on January 1.

The Putrajaya MP also confirmed that property owners do not have to pay until a special panel on the special panel on the assessment hike decides on the rate, latest by March next year.

“We’re not increasing the rate yet, we have not decided to increase the rate,” he said yesterday, adding that the rate could be reduced to 1 per cent from the current 6 per cent for homeowners.