Real Estate Scandal Rocks Moroccan Housing Cooperative, Sparks Investigation

The office of the housing cooperative, Al Abrar created in 2014 and comprising 231 apartments, in El Mansouria is the subject of a complaint from 53 members transmitted by the presidency of the public prosecutor’s office to the public prosecutor’s office near the court of first instance of Benslimane. They accuse the office of "misappropriation of funds" of "squandering the money of a housing cooperative", of "breach of trust" and of "fraud". The contracts signed between the two parties have not been respected: completion of the project, delivery of the final delivery contracts, finalization of the registration procedures and obtaining the land title for each owner.

In this complaint, the members claim to have paid the prices of their apartment as agreed with a notary, and to have paid an additional sum of 10,000 dirhams, as registration fees for the cooperative. In total, 150 million dirhams were collected by the cooperative’s office. Subsequently, they say they discovered that the land title of the land on which these housing units were built was heavily indebted, and blocked by several mortgages, that their residence still does not have elevators and the parking lot work, initially planned, remains unfinished. Worse, the same apartments have been sold more than once, particularly to Moroccans residing abroad (MREs).

The gendarmerie services of Bouznika are conducting an investigation to shed light on this case.