RIYADH — The proactive role of the judiciary has been instrumental in retrieving investments amounting to SR12 billion made by nearly 30,000 shareholders in stalled real estate projects. The cases related to stalled projects witnessed a speedy resolution following the directives of Minister of Justice and Chairman of the Supreme Judiciary Council Sheikh Walid Al-Samaani. The minister called for speeding up cases of shareholders of such projects, restoring their rights and created a judicial circuit to look into such cases. Speaking to Okaz/Saudi Gazette, well-informed sources said that the Circuit for the Real Estate Shares at the General Court in Riyadh has been able to resolve issues of investment shares, some of which have defaulted for 40 years, and the beneficiaries reached about 30,000, with a value of SR12 billion, while the circuit is currently working to settle dozens of similar cases. The sources pointed out that among the closed cases include one related to the investment project of Al-Kharj Land, which covers an area of 12 million square meters, and Al-Nawras Township project, which has 680 shareholders, with a total area of three million square meters. The sources indicated that there are several factors that contributed to stalling the investment projects. These include conflict of jurisdiction between government agencies; stopping of the ownership deeds of some shares; stalled shares due to the death of investors as well as those imprisoned due to their insolvency and rights owed to shareholders. Minister of Justice had issued a decision on 3 Rajab 1437 (April 10, 2016) to create the Real Estate Stocks Circuit in the General Court in Riyadh, and it was followed by the directive of the Council of Minister in Rajab 1438 (April 2017) to designate some judges in general courts, appeal courts, and enforcement courts to work outside their official working hours, in order to expedite the resolution of issues related to real estate investment cases and to support the circuit with what it needs to enhance effectiveness, produce the best results, and implement relevant Cabinet decisions. It is noteworthy that the stalled investment cases involve a lot of complications mainly because of the death of some of the parties a long time ago or loss of a number of important documents in these cases.
