Riyadh-Amlak
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry received 12 new applications from developers and investors to obtain an “off-plan sales” license during its pavilion at the Riyadh Real Estate, Housing and Development Exhibition, which was recently held in Riyadh.
Sources said that the number of projects licensed for off-plan sales reached 27 projects with 20,000 housing units with a market value of more than 20 billion riyals. She added that the ministry did not receive any complaints until the end of the exhibition yesterday regarding the presence of investors selling and marketing their properties outside the “off-plan sale” program, noting that most of the complaints represented the marketing and external sale of real estate and products outside the Kingdom in areas such as London, Lebanon and other countries.

The “Trade and Industry” warned against responding or dealing with such foreign projects that market in the Kingdom in an attempt to earn money from Saudi investors in light of the fact that many of them suffer from major issues, including the fact that many of them are unlicensed or fictitious, noting at the same time the importance of reporting directly on these fake projects through the official email of the Ministry or through the unified phone for consumer complaints.

The sources stated that most of the complaints received by the Ministry through its pavilion at the Riyadh Real Estate Exhibition is to ask about the pursuit of real estate leasing offices and real estate institutions set by the Ministry as stipulated by the law of 2.5 percent, with violations in this regard, as some offices far exceed the specified percentage, and others impose an annual commission on tenants of real estate, whether residential, commercial, exhibitions or others.

The Ministry emphasized that this is a clear violation of the law and that no institution or leasing office has the right to impose any commission or rate of pursuit other than what is specified by law, and that the Ministry has initiated reports from citizens who were exposed to raising the amount of the pursuit and imposing a fixed annual pursuit, stressing that the pursuit is taken only once at the beginning of the relationship between the owner and the tenant and the leasing office or broker has no right to take any additional amounts under any name whatsoever.