Highlights

Cabinet Decree no. 800 of 2020 was recently issued amending the executive regulation of Law no. 17 of 2019 on the reconciliation of construction violations.

Scope of the Decree

This Decree provides for the composition of one committee (or more) within the administrative competent authority in order to handle the settlement and reconciliation requests in cases of construction violations. The said committee shall review the documents submitted by an applicant and conduct field inspections. That said, the Decree does not specify its application to a specific governorate. Further, the Decree includes the process to be followed by any applicant opting for reconciliation of a construction violation.

Violations and Reconciliation Fees

The Decree states a set of construction violations which are eligible for a settlement and/or reconciliation along with the respective settlement and reconciliation fees. Among which, the following examples can be mentioned:

• Violations due to construction without license for which the reconciliation fees shall be calculated on the basis of the full value of one meter of the relevant land;
• violations due to change of the land’s/building’s purpose for which the reconciliation fees shall be calculated on the basis of the full value of one meter of the relevant land;
• violations of the architectural drawings, for which the reconciliation fees shall be calculated on the basis of 15% of the value of one meter of the relevant land; and
• fences violations, for which the reconciliation fees shall be calculated on the basis of 15% of the value of one meter of the relevant land.

Reconciliation process

 The Decree provides that the process of applying for a settlement and a reconciliation of a construction violation is as follows:

1. The applicant shall submit a request for reconciliation to the competent administrative authority after paying of the relevant inspection fees along with several required documents (e.g. the applicant’s ID, an evidence that these violations have occurred before the issuance of the Law no.17 of 2019 relevant to the reconciliation of construction violation, and architectural drawings of the violations). Afterwards, the administrative authority should issue a certificate of application evidencing the submission of the request;
2. the technical secretariat shall review the application file and ensure that all required documents are submitted and then shall provide a report to the technical Committee;
3. the reconciliation committee shall review the applicant’s file a well as the report prepared by the reconciliation committee’s technical secretariat’s , conduct a field inspection of the construction violation and prepare a report to be submitted to the Governor or the head of the competent administrative authority, as the case may be in order to decide whether to  accept or  reject the reconciliation request. The decision should be issued within three months from the date of the application; and
4. if the request is accepted, the competent administrative authority shall require the collection of the relevant reconciliation fees (which may be settled by the applicant on installments not exceeding three years) and shall notify the other competent authorities of the reconciliation acceptance.

The request of reconciliation shall be submitted within a maximum period of six months from the issuance of the Decree.