Morocco Eases Inheritance Rules for State-Owned Agricultural Lands

The Executive examined and adopted draft law No. 63.18 amending and supplementing the law relating to the allocation to farmers of agricultural or agricultural land belonging to the private domain of the State (Dahir of 1972), during its weekly meeting.

According to Said Amzazi, government spokesperson, the text presented by the minister in charge, Aziz Akhannouch, was approved "after taking into account the remarks raised about it". The objective of the law, which mainly concerns small farmers and applies to plots of land located outside the urban perimeter, is to "liberalize the land reform sector from all obligations and charges, and thus definitively sanitize this sector".

Thanks to these new provisions, the heirs of the beneficiary will now be able to be subrogated to him, in accordance with the rules of succession, instead of allocating the agricultural land to a single heir, as provided for in the old text. Three scenarios are now provided for in Article 2 of the draft: "In the event of the death of the beneficiary of the lot, the ownership of said lot and the equipment necessary for its operation are directly transferred to his heirs, in accordance with the rules of inheritance. Similarly, if a sales contract has not been concluded with the deceased beneficiary, it will be concluded with his heirs. In the event that the deceased person has no heirs, the State will take back the lot and the equipment necessary for its operation and said lot will no longer be subject to the provisions of this law".

According to the old text now obsolete, in the event of the death of the beneficiary, the agricultural land plot was "reallocated to one of the heirs", or returned to the State which, in turn, allocated it "to another beneficiary outside the heirs, if the latter do not meet certain conditions, or if they do not submit applications for allocation within the time limits, or in the absence of heirs".