Can you appeal DBKL assessment rate?

Having moved house recently it was no surprise that the local authority's assessment came shortly afterwards.

After reading the fine print, I realised there was a time frame to object to it (14 days) and without delay wrote a letter to appeal.

Within about a month time, I received a notification to attend a Hearing. Since I was inexperienced I tried to call and ask what are the possible factors which DBKL will take into consideration but alas no hints were given.

So there I was at the DBKL office at 10am only to find out that the venue is at Menara TH Perdana (Tabung Haji) beside Maju Junction. On the way there, I found out I was not the only one who made the mistake. I mean it's only common sense that the hearing would be held in DBKL premise right?

Anyway having reached there I was given a queue number and waited outside. When the door to the conference room opened I note a lot of people coming out and after asking around found out that it was a group complain with DBKL cos they have yet to receive their CF (certificate of fitness) for their properties.

So there I was a bit petrified that my case was too petty for the hearing... so when my turn came, I was ushered into this long conference room with 7-9 pairs of eyes looking at me... There were representatives from the Legal Department, Valuation Department as well as others which titles were too long for me to remember but there were this big shot "PENGERUSI" (chairman) sitting at the centre of this longgggg table.

To cut the story short, I just received another notification from DBKL stating that after the hearing, they have decided to "MENGEKALKAN" (maintain) the assessment.

Sigh! So much for the effort to write the letter and attend the hearing... well on the bright side at least it gave me something to blog about ;p