Nabisah Binti Abdul Hamid (PM 6413) v Pentadbir Tanah Kuala Langat

Case Significance

A companion land-reference appeal focused on comparable-sales methodology under First Schedule para 1(1A) and the danger of over-reliance on a single comparable, within the section 49(1) limit on quantum appeals.

This Court of Appeal matter is a companion land-reference dispute arising from the same Kuala Langat acquisition, brought by a different landowner whose compensation under the Land Acquisition Act 1960 was in issue. Although the legal framework mirrors that in the related reference, the emphasis here falls on the valuation methodology itself and the weight properly given to the evidence on which market value was assessed.

At the heart of the case is the assessment of market value under paragraph 1(1A) of the First Schedule to the Act, which directs how compensation is to be measured and permits regard to be had to comparable sales. The permissive character of that language — "regard may be had" — matters: it confers a measured discretion rather than a rigid formula, and leaves the tribunal to decide which comparables genuinely assist. The selection of comparables is disciplined by the requirements of vicinity and locality, so that only sales of sufficiently similar land in a sufficiently similar area carry real evidential force. A recurring difficulty, engaged directly here, is the reliance on a single comparable transaction: the reliability and weight of one comparable, standing alone, may be limited, and the tribunal must be astute to whether it truly reflects open-market value.

Layered onto this was the treatment of the competing opinions of the Government assessor and the private valuer, to be weighed in accordance with the Nusantara Daya principle rather than accepted uncritically. Because section 49(1) prohibits an appeal on the quantum of compensation, these matters could be examined only so far as they raised questions of law — the reliability of valuation evidence and the correct application of statutory valuation principles — as distinct from a bare quarrel with the sum awarded. The judgment is a useful illustration of how comparable-sales methodology, and in particular the danger of over-reliance on a single comparable, is analysed within the confined appellate jurisdiction over land references.