Skip to content
mylaw.myby aturio
In forceUpdated to 1 Sep 2019Read it in Bahasa Malaysia
Contents

Act of Parliament

Limitation Act 1953

Feedback & supportTime limits for bringing court actions and arbitrations

In plain English

Not legal advice

The Act deals with the limitation of actions and arbitrations. It covers some negligence claims for damages not involving personal injuries. Such a claim may be brought up to three years from the starting date, if that period ends later than the limit set elsewhere in the Act. The starting date is when the claimant, or an earlier holder of the claim, first had both the knowledge and the right to sue. No such claim may be brought after fifteen years from when the cause of action arose.

Summary · Drafted with AI, checked against the official text on 30 Sep 2026.

Part I

Official textFrom Laws of Malaysia Online, unchanged

s 1

(1)

This Act may be cited as the Limitation Act 1953.

(2)

This Act shall apply to Peninsular Malaysia only.

(1)

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires—

“action” includes a suit or any other proceeding in a court of law;

“land” includes things attached to the earth or permanently fastened to anything attached to the earth, rent charges and any legal or equitable estate or interest in land including an interest in the proceeds of sale of land held upon trust for sale but save as aforesaid does not include any right of way, easement, servitude, profit over or in respect of land, or right in the nature of an easement, servitude or profit over or in respect of land, or any other incorporeal hereditament;

“personal estate” and “personal property” do not include land or chattels real;

8 Laws of Malaysia ACT 254

“rent” includes a rent charge and a rent service;

“rent charge” means any annuity or periodical sum of money charged upon or payable out of land except a rent service or interest on the mortgage or charge of land or a rent payable to the State in respect of the grant or lease or alienation of State land;

“trust” and “trustee” have the same meanings respectively as in the

Trustee Act 1949 [Act 208];

“Peninsular Malaysia” has the meaning assigned thereto in section 3

of the Interpretation Acts 1948 and 1967 [Act 388], and includes the

Federal Territory.

(2)

For the purposes of this Act, a person shall be deemed to be under a disability while he is an infant or of unsound mind.

(3)

A person shall be deemed to claim through another person, if he became entitled by, through, under, or by the act of that other person to the right claimed:

Provided that a person becoming entitled to any estate or interest by virtue of a special power of appointment shall not be deemed to claim through the appointor.

(4)

References in this Act to a right of action to recover land shall include references to a right to enter into possession of the land or in the case of rent charges any right to distrain for arrears of rent and references to the bringing of such an action shall include references to the making of such an entry or distraint.

(5)

References in this Act to the possession of land shall, in the case of rent charges, be construed as references to the receipt of the rent, and references to the date of dispossession or discontinuance of possession of land shall, in the case of rent charges, be construed as references to the date of the last receipt of rent.

(6)

In Part III of this Act references to a right of action shall include references to a cause of action and to a right to receive money secured

Limitation 9

by a mortgage or charge on any property or to recover proceeds of the sale of land, and to a right to receive a share or interest in the personal estate of a deceased person and references to the date of the accrual of a right of action shall—

(a)

in the case of an action for an account, be construed as references to the date on which the matter arose in respect of which an account is claimed;

(b)

in the case of an action upon a judgment, be construed as references to the date on which the judgment became enforceable;

(c)

in the case of an action to recover arrears of rent or interest, or damages in respect thereof, be construed as references to the date on which the rent or interest became due.

s 3Saving for other limitation enactments

This Act shall not apply to any action or arbitration for which a period of limitation is prescribed by any other written law or to any action or arbitration to which the Government or the Government of any State is a party and for which if it were between subjects a period of limitation would have been prescribed by any other written law.

s 4Limitation not to operate as a bar unless specially pleaded

Nothing in this Act shall operate as a bar to an action unless this

Act has been expressly pleaded as a defence thereto in any case where under any written law relating to civil procedure for the time being in force such a defence is required to be so pleaded.

Part II

Read on from Part II

Part III

Read on from Part III

Part IV

Read on from Part IV