The General Authority for Real Estate (G.A.R.A.) has launched the Regulatory Real Estate Auctions Regulation through the «Explore» platform, with the aim of enabling the public, government entities and the private sector to express their views and comments on it before its approval."

She explained that the draft regulation was built according to best practices and after studying the current situation in the market and conducting a benchmark comparison with the best international experiences regarding real estate auctions, in order to avoid any challenges faced by this activity.

The draft regulation contains 12 articles, including license provisions, licensee obligations, the electronic platform, the request to hold a real estate auction, the provisions of holding a real estate auction, and other articles.

The provisions of these regulations apply to all real estate auctions in the Kingdom, including judicial real estate auctions and the like to the extent that no special provision is made to regulate them.

The provisions of these regulations apply to all real estate auctions in the Kingdom.

The Authority indicated that there are requirements for the license to practice the real estate auction service - in addition to the requirements contained in the executive regulations of the Real Estate Brokerage System - for establishments that provide it through electronic means, the most important of which are linking the licensee's electronic real estate auction platform to the electronic platform of the Authority, pledging to ensure the safety of operations conducted in the licensee's platform, stopping or returning the real estate auction in transactions that are marred by technical errors or violations in order to protect the competitiveness of supply and demand, linking the electronic platform to the national access platform, and beneficiaries” access to the electronic medium

According to the draft, the regulation stipulates the most important requirements that the licensee to practice real estate auctions must adhere to save all real estate auction bulletins and their records, record the proceedings of visual auctions, documents and data for all its transactions for five years from the date of the end of the real estate auction, hold the real estate auction during the validity period of the brokerage contract, and announce the auction bulletin five days - at a minimum - before the date of its holding.

Added: According to the articles of the regulation, the licensee must include a number of information, the most important of which are: The method, date and duration of the real estate auction, if anyThe type of disposal of the real estate subject to the real estate auction, the minimum acceptable award value for the disposal of the property after the auction, the minimum starting value of the auction, the amount of entry into the auction - if any - provided that the amount does not exceed 5% of the estimated value of the property based on an evaluation from an accredited evaluator, and specifying the type of amount "deposit - down payment - refundable insurance", the time period specified for awarding the highest price after bidding and the possibility of extending it for a similar period once, in addition to the mechanisms and periods for receiving and delivering the price after awarding it.

The licensee is required to submit a request to hold a real estate auction on the Authority's electronic platform, and fill out the approved form - fifteen days before holding it - as a minimum.Provided that the Authority studies the request within a period not exceeding five working days from the completion of the request, and issues approval to hold the real estate auction, or rejects it, stating the reasons for rejection and informing the applicant of this, indicating that the licensee must close the real estate auction in the electronic platform after the completion of its holding within a period not exceeding five working days, and return all financial amounts to the competitors received by him in the real estate auction - except those who won the real estate auction - within a period not exceeding three working days from the date of completion of its holding.

The General Authority for Real Estate pointed out that it is possible to access a survey platform and provide comments and suggestions on the regulation of real estate auctions.