OKAZ reported on June 11 that the Ministry of Justice was setting up the infrastructure for the electronic link-up of all public notary offices in the Kingdom. A computer link-up between public notaries will not just ease the woes of landowners, real estate businessmen and potential land purchasers and dispense with the need to go to the city where the real estate is located, but the system will by its very nature prevent errors resulting from the dependence on hand-written certification of archives such as title deeds failing to correspond and paper documents' vulnerability to damage and loss. The electronic link-up will also require property deed archives to be converted into electronic ones both easier to access and handle, making simpler all operations in which they are involved, whether sales and agency dealings, or inheritance disputes and mortgages. The electronic archive will also prevent any abuse of files given that it will allow control and monitoring authorities access to observe any operations involving deeds and trace their origins to verify authenticity. The electronic archive will also pave the way for the link-up between notaries public, since the seller, purchaser, mortgage lender or mortgage holder will no longer need to go to the site of the property, but will instead go to any public notary office to complete a sale or purchase or any other business, availing himself of the technological means that permit communication between the various departments irrespective of the provinces in which they are located or the distances between them. The move will reduce pressure on public notary offices in major cities and redistribute workloads across the regions, speeding up sales and purchases and giving new impetus to the real estate market, resulting in a positive effect on construction and development. __
