If you’re renting a home in Malaysia, or renting one out, you’ve probably heard this promise before: a proper tenancy law is finally close to being tabled in Parliament. It still isn’t law yet, but the gap it’s meant to fill is getting harder to ignore.
This article looks at where the Residential Tenancy Act (RTA) actually stands, what’s changed around tenancy paperwork in the meantime, and what landlords and tenants can do to protect themselves while the law is still on the way.
Where the RTA Stands Today
The idea isn’t new. The RTA was first proposed in January 2019 under the National Housing Policy, and successive housing ministers have promised some version of it ever since, without it reaching Parliament.
Right now, Malaysia has no dedicated tribunal for landlord-tenant disputes. A dispute over unpaid rent, a deposit refund, or an eviction has to go through the ordinary civil courts, where cases can cost RM8,000 to RM25,000 in legal fees and take four to twelve months to resolve.
That’s different from strata living. Malaysia already has a Strata Management Tribunal that has handled disputes between residents and their management bodies since 2015, but it has no power over landlord-tenant matters such as rent arrears or deposit disputes — those still go to court.
What the New Law Is Expected to Cover
The bill itself isn’t public, but based on ministry statements and consultation drafts, the RTA is widely expected to:
- Create a dedicated tenancy tribunal, modelled on the existing Strata Management Tribunal, for faster and cheaper dispute resolution
- Standardise notice periods and cap security deposit amounts, which currently have no statutory limit at all
- Mandate a written tenancy agreement for residential rentals, rather than leaving it optional
- Clarify the rules around ending or not renewing a tenancy
Tenancy Agreement Is Still Your Real Protection
In the absence of a tenancy-specific statute, Malaysian rental relationships are currently governed by a patchwork of general law — the Contracts Act 1950, the Specific Relief Act 1950, the Distress Act 1951, and the Stamp Act 1949 — plus whatever terms the parties actually put in writing.
One protection that already exists, a landlord cannot lock out a tenant, cut off utilities, or remove their belongings without a court order, even if rent is unpaid. Self-help eviction is unlawful no matter how serious the breach is.
For recovering unpaid rent specifically, distress proceedings under the Distress Act 1951 remain one of the established remedies available to a landlord — it’s one of the tenancy services our team handles directly, alongside letters of demand and recovery of rental arrears.
And whichever remedy applies, none of it works without the right paperwork: an unstamped tenancy agreement is not admissible as evidence in a Malaysian court, which can leave a landlord unable to prove the very arrears or breach they’re trying to recover.
Stamping Rules Changed Starting January 2026
Separately from the RTA, the way tenancy agreements get stamped has already changed this year. LHDN retired its old STAMPS portal at the end of 2025 and moved stamping for tenancy and lease agreements onto e-Duti Setem inside the MyTax portal from 1 January 2026.
The bigger shift is who does the checking. Under the new self-assessment system, the taxpayer (or their lawyer) is now responsible for calculating the correct duty rather than relying on LHDN to do it for them, with records expected to be kept for up to seven years in case of an audit.
On top of that, the longstanding exemption on the first RM2,400 of annual rent has been removed, so the full rental amount is now subject to duty — an easy detail to miss if you’re reusing an old template or calculating duty the way you always have.
Drafting a tenancy agreement, chasing rental arrears, or facing a tenancy dispute? Get in touch with C P Ngoo & Co to talk through your situation.
How C P Ngoo & Co Helps With Tenancy Matters
C P Ngoo & Co is a Sri Petaling-based firm that has focused on litigation and property law since 2017, and tenancy work sits squarely within that practice.
Under our Tenancy Matters practice area, we draft tenancy agreements that anticipate disputes rather than just describe the rent, issue letters of demand when rent falls into arrears, and act in distress proceedings and recovery of rental arrears or vacant possession when a tenancy breaks down.
We also handle the litigation side directly when a tenancy or contractual dispute can’t be resolved without going to court, and our Real Property practice covers leases and development-related transactions more broadly. The firm is also the panel law firm for one of the malls in Klang Valley, which gives us direct experience with commercial tenancies as well as residential ones.