Adnan Al-Shabrawi Okaz/Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — Red tape and unnecessary bureaucratic hassles has delayed the handing over of 86 plots of land to their claimants, several residents here have complained. They said the main cause is the bureaucratic wrangling between the Ministry of Justice and the Jeddah Municipality. Instructions were issued some time back to implement the recommendations of a top-level ministerial committee to issue deeds to owners of the plots. But as the Jeddah Municipality claimed the existence of another deed, Prince Mansour Bin Mit'eb, Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs, ordered a review of the case. The Jeddah court, meanwhile, recorded a large number of title claims in the case of land encroachments. A claimant charged that courts are extremely slow in hearing their cases, especially since the entire legal proceedings have already been completed. The claimants are refusing to be refunded the amount they paid 30 years ago, since the land values have increased several folds, while the heirs claim no responsibility for real estate that their fathers sold while not owning it. Despite the encroachment claims, citizens continued paying their installments to the bank, and upon completion of their installments, they were refused their title deeds due to encroachment claims. Real estate cases require a long wait in the courts due to the many conflicting claims and the need to verify the original deeds with the Ministry of Justice. Encroachment cases have become widespread, causing the suspension of issuing deeds and monetary losses to the claimants.
