Morocco Tightens Real Estate Rules to Combat Land Grabbing

According to L’Economiste, this measure marks "the end of the possibility of requesting a copy of the Certificate of Real Estate Ownership concerning a third party, unless one has an official mandate for this purpose or belongs to the following professional categories: notaries, lawyers and adouls".

Applicable since September 16, the measure also concerns land titles and copies of land titles as well as any other document deposited with the Land Conservation Agency.

In this regard, the newspaper details that "the consultation of land titles concerning third parties will also be prohibited without a power of attorney", adding that "the request for a Certificate of Ownership must be legalized and accompanied by a copy of the identity card".

Several benefits are targeted by this new provision taken by the Land Conservation Agency, which is part of the royal instructions to the Minister of Justice. Indeed, it aims to "strengthen the fight against land grabbing", notes the newspaper, which adds that "99% of these land grabbing operations were carried out through powers of attorney".

According to its designers, "the philosophy behind this decision is that an interested person in a property should have no problem making a request for a Certificate of Ownership in a transparent manner, by using one of the professions concerned or by requesting a power of attorney".

In addition, another measure aimed at strengthening the fight against land grabbing is the implementation of an alert system (Mohafadati) through the sending of an SMS as soon as there is an attempt to modify a land title. In this regard, 25,000 people register on the internet each month, the same source specifies.