The Ministry of Justice committee is set to finalize examining 3,000 title deeds for disputed land “within weeks”, after beginning its tasks four months ago. The deeds concern properties for which two or more ownership documents have been issued, as well as boundary disputes, and all are located in planned areas and land in north east Jeddah. Sources said that the committee, led by Jeddah First Notary Public Ibrahim Al-Zahrani, had also found ownership documents for large areas of land originally issued as a “preventive measure to safeguard public property”. The sources did not identify the land in question. According to Abdullah Al-Ahmari, Chairman of the Real Estate Committee at Jeddah's Chamber of Commerce and Industry, tackling the problem of multiple title deeds for the same plot of land “requires great effort through a series of regulatory measures”. “Jeddah is almost the only place suffering from the problem, and it's been caused mainly by the fact that the Jeddah mayoralty grants land to the public without examining the location,” Al-Ahmari said. “In other words, giving land that has already been granted to other people,” the official added.
