Well-informed sources announced that the Ministry of Housing will begin implementing the standardized contract for the commercial sector—as part of the “Ijar” online platform—during the fourth quarter of 2018.
They stated that the Ministry has submitted the standardized lease agreement for the commercial sector to the Ministry of Justice for review prior to its implementation this year.
They noted that the Ministry of Housing is working to resolve the issues faced by real estate brokerage offices in registering the property details of investors wishing to rent out their properties through the “Ijar” program, namely the lengthy registration process and the high volume of verification messages they receive—exceeding five such messages.
She explained that a “new contract” between property owners and real estate brokerage offices will soon be launched, with a processing time of approximately 120 seconds (instead of half an hour or more) and requiring only a single verification message.
According to data from the Ministry of Housing, the total number of homeowner and renter households in the Kingdom reached approximately 5.3 million, while the number of rental housing units in Saudi Arabia exceeded 2.7 million.
On February 12, the Ministries of Housing and Justice, in collaboration with a number of government agencies, launched the “Electronic Rental Network” which provides numerous electronic services to parties involved in the rental process, such as contract notarization and electronic payment, while requiring all real estate brokers in every city of the Kingdom to notarize the standardized lease agreement on the Electronic Rental Services Network—the contract approved as an enforceable instrument.
The Ministry of Housing confirmed that the network is one of the initiatives it has launched to regulate the real estate sector, including the rental sector, noting that it has developed a number of plans over the past few years to fully regulate the sector.
It noted that the launch of the network is the result of the plans adopted by the Ministry, through which it aims to provide a system of services that regulates and facilitates the rental process for tenants, landlords, and real estate brokers alike, thereby reducing disputes, and helps resolve them quickly by standardizing the lease agreement and making it enforceable.
