InfraLex

Legal Significance

What This Instrument Does

The Law establishes the legal and administrative architecture for recording property, ownership and registrable real rights. It governs the real-estate register, applications and supporting instruments, the legal significance of registration and entry, alteration of registered data, and institutional review of registration issues. It also supplies the statutory basis for electronic procedures developed in Decision No. 72 of 2025.

Why It Matters

Infrastructure projects depend on reliable site rights, traceable title and enforceable encumbrances. The Law is therefore relevant when diligence must distinguish a contractual promise concerning land from a right reflected in the official register. It also matters to lenders because an agreed mortgage or other real right may require registration and correct priority treatment; the financing documents cannot substitute for the applicable property-registration act.

Key Provisions

Register architecture and property identity
Establishes the official record by which each property or unit, its description and legal status are identified.
Registrable dispositions and principal real rights
Brings transactions creating, transferring, changing or extinguishing ownership and other principal real rights within the registration framework.
Mortgages, encumbrances and annotations
Provides the registration or entry layer through which security and burdens affecting land become visible in the property record.
Legal effect of registration
Distinguishes registered real-right effects from the inter-party contractual consequences that may survive non-registration; exact consequences must be read from the Arabic text and applicable jurisprudence.
Priority and competing claims
Makes order, accuracy and timing of entries commercially important where rights compete.
Applications and supporting evidence
Requires the applicant, instrument and property data to satisfy the prescribed documentary and procedural rules.
Cadastral and descriptive accuracy
Connects legal registration to plans, boundaries, subdivision, consolidation and property-description controls.
Correction, updating and cancellation
Regulates changes to inaccurate, superseded or extinguished entries without treating the register as informally editable.
Institutional decision-making and review
Allocates registration functions and supports committee/grievance procedures developed by Decision No. 70 of 2025.
Electronic enablement
Permits registration processes to operate through verified electronic channels under implementing controls.
Access, extracts and evidentiary records
Supports use of official register information and documents in diligence and transactions, subject to prescribed access rules.
Transition and replacement
Moves the system away from Law No. 14 of 1964 while preserving orderly treatment of existing records and procedures.

When You Would Use This

Site diligence

Verifying title and encumbrances during site diligence.

Land acquisition or disposal

Acquiring or disposing of land or a registrable real right.

Mortgage registration

Registering an immovable mortgage.

Usufruct / site rights

Documenting usufruct or another qualifying site right.

Cadastral changes

Subdividing, consolidating or updating property data.

Project-agreement land covenants

Testing whether a project agreement's land covenant has produced the intended property-law result.

Financing conditions precedent

Checking registration deliverables as finance conditions precedent.

Electronic registration / extracts

Planning an electronic registration or obtaining official extracts.

InfraLex Relevance

The Law should be used as the primary registration map, not as proof that a project company owns or can acquire a particular site. InfraLex should show the sequence: identify the right, confirm that the holder may acquire it, execute the relevant instrument, satisfy cadastral/documentary requirements, register or enter it, then verify the resulting extract and priority. Foreign-ownership, State-property and expropriation rules answer different threshold questions.

Legal Framework Position

Land / Real Estate / Land UsePrimary / Framework Instrument
Security / CollateralSupporting / Related Instrument

Related / Implementing Instruments

Instrument Overview

Official Citation: Law No. 5 of 2024
Instrument Type: Law / Act
Source Language: Arabic
Enactment Date: 5 June 2024
Effective Date: 5 June 2024