<The Ministry of Municipalities and Housing Ministry of Municipalities and Housing has released the draft executive regulations for the fees of vacant properties through the “Explore” platform, inviting the public, interested parties and stakeholders to review the draft and express their views and comments on it before adopting it in its final form, in line with the directives of His Highness the Crown Prince - may God protect him - aimed at regulating the real estate market and balancing between supply and demand.<This step comes within the framework of the Ministry's keenness to enhance transparency and stakeholder participation in the development of regulations and legislation, which contributes to raising the quality of regulatory outputs and achieving balance in <a href="https://amlak.The regulation aims to raise the efficiency of the use of real estate assets within the urban areas, by incentivizing real estate owners to operate or benefit from them, thus supporting the increase in real estate supply and contributing to the stability of the market.

The draft regulation includes organizing mechanisms for applying annual fees on vacant properties within specific cities and geographical ranges to be announced later, according to technical criteria that take into account market indicators, supply and demand levels, and vacancy rates.The draft regulation also defined the cases in which the property is subject to the fee, most notably the building remains unoccupied for a specific period of time during the reference year, with the requirement that it be usable or eligible for occupancy, indicating that in the event of multiple owners of the property subject to the fee, each owner is obligated to pay a portion of the fee in proportion to his share of ownership of the property.

The draft also included controls for disclosing the status of properties, occupancy verification procedures, mechanism for issuing fee invoices and payment methods, in addition to determining the cases in which the application of the fee is suspended.<The Ministry invited all interested parties to visit the "Reconnaissance“ platform to view the details of the draft and provide their feedback during the specified period, stressing that public feedback contributes to the development of the regulation to achieve its objectives and enhance the efficiency of the real estate market.
The launch of the draft regulation comes within the framework of completing the implementation of the amendments approved by the Saudi Council of Ministers to the White Land and Vacant Real Estate Fees Law; in order to enhance the tools of real estate market regulation and increase the efficiency of real estate assets within urban ranges, and contribute to increasing the supply of real estate, supporting the balance in the market, promoting fair competition and limiting the practices of the