To finish the process of implementing the new law’s provisions, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is drafting the executive decisions and regulations of Law No. (5) of 2024, which governs real estate registration.
Saeed Abdullah Al Suwaidi, the MoJ’s Assistant Undersecretary for Real Estate Registration and Documentation Affairs, explained that this is part of the ministry’s efforts to modernize the legal and service system and to carry out the wise leadership’s directives to speed up transactions and services provided to citizens and residents. It also aims to raise the standard of services provided by government authorities, including the initiation of digital transformation initiatives.
According to him, the law has entirely created several new provisions for real estate registration that mainly protect citizens’ ownership and rights over their real estate, as well as private investments made by citizens and non-citizens. These parties currently benefit from previously unheard-of legal guarantees because of the state-of-the-art legislation that Qatar has approved in the recent past.
Al Suwaidi stated that, in compliance with the rules and procedures established by a decision from the Minister of Justice, clients will soon be able to buy and sell real estate online via the SAK mobile app and enforce the real estate registration procedures electronically.
Noting judicial rulings on the real estate page as soon as they are issued will help prevent fraud. Other features include increasing transaction transparency and informing the parties of all real estate data, all of which will help to reduce real estate disputes. He emphasized that a register is created in the Real Estate Registration Department at the MoJ, where registration applications are recorded with serial numbers in the order in which they are submitted, and where requests for obtaining documents and certificates are recorded. The law has dedicated a special ruling for the registration measures, and authentication of signatures.
Al Suwaidi said that by the forms of documents prepared by the Real Estate Registration Department for this purpose, as well as the procedures and conditions outlined in the law and its subsequent executive regulations, the procedures for the registration or authentication of signatures must be carried out upon request from the parties involved or their surrogates.
In addition to preserving records, documents, and indexes about real estate registration, the new law, which has been crafted in 55 articles to replace the one that has been in effect for 60 years, makes significant and comprehensive changes that will fundamentally alter the real estate registration industry. As stated by Al Suwaidi. According to him, the new law also determines whether to approve or reject applications submitted by relevant entities to register unregistered properties, as well as whether to decide who owns ownership rights to unregistered properties that are taken for public use. It also organizes the powers of the Real Estate Registration Committee, establishes procedures for updating real estate registry data, and makes other amendments that were designed to be flexible and to accommodate all aspects of society and state development.
All transactions that would establish, transfer, modify, or otherwise affect an ownership right or another original real estate right, as well as the conclusive clauses that uphold these rights, will be registered under the law. Al Suwaidi went on to say that the new law also considered the public’s service and the real estate industry as a whole, to streamline procedures and facilitate transactions for the benefit of both private citizens and corporate entities.
He noted that the Qatari project has been dedicated to safeguarding the rights of citizens and all clients in the local real estate industry and that these changes fall within the framework of updating the laws to meet the goals of QNV 2030 and the third Qatar National Development Strategy 2024–2030.
