Egypt4u

How to buy a property not on a compound.
We done this recently and this is the exact procedure.


1) View property and agree a price.

2) View sellers contract of sale and his registration document from the court.

3) Make a sales contract between you and the seller. The sales contract can be bought from any stationery shop for a few pounds.

4) Fill in the sales contract and seller and purchaser both have two witnesses.

Appoint a reputable lawyer next.

5) Take the court registration of the seller to the lawyer for stamp verification.

6) If it is legal pay a deposit.

7) Make a POA allowing the lawyer to represent you in court before the judge.

8 ) ask the seller if he wants to use your lawyer or to attend the court to represent himself.

9) If he is happy with your lawyer then he must also make a POA for your lawyer to represent him and both POA documents must be handed to your lawyer along with the sales contract.

At this point you can pay the balance or half. We paid in full at this point.

10) Your lawyer then will take the sales contract and POA's to the court and fill in a re registering document with the new owner on it (us). If your seller has not given POA to your lawyer, the court will then notify the seller and ask him if he wants to sell. They will do this twice. They have to track him down, so it is in your interest to get him to that court, or preferably have him do a POA for your lawyer.

11) It takes approx 4 months to complete the procedure. Your lawyer will then contact you at 4 months to say it has been re registered and court stamped by the judge and you are then officially the owner.

12) Pay the lawyer.


Our procedure took exactly 4 months, involved one visit to the seller, a few phone calls, two visits to the lawyer. One to take the documents and one to pick up the new contract.

We paid 450le for this service and it was payable at the end.

If you are doing anything that seems excessive or different you really should be questioning it.

DO NOT PAY LAWYERS TILL THE WORK IS COMPLETE!!!! and it should be in the region of what we paid.

A very good lawyer in Luxor will cost from 5,000LE upwards, this cost includes everything from making a proxy to all land/property checks, court registrations, stamps, taxes etc (the complete package) making sure everything is donr correct like the electric meter transfered to the new owners name. (contracts also done in English and Arabic)

Ebikatsu pointed out 90% can be done yourself and only cost 450 LE (if you understand the procedure and have an Friend/Boyfriend/Husband you 100% trust who can speak Arabic.
Personaly I would have a lawyer do everything so you have peace of mind that everything is correct. We have heard so many horror stories in Luxor from people who have taken short cuts and found that they are not the owner of the house or dont own part of the land the flat is built on, the list is endless.

WHEN BUYING PROPERTY - DONT TAKE SHORT CUTS JUST TO SAVE A FEW QUID

Keefy,

but that means the seller and the buyer need to attend court and all that carry on. They have to go to change the meters over in person at the company etc.

He can't do that without the POA.

The person needs to attend the court once to do a proxy with their lawyer, so no carry on, 1 hour max.

Yep

the POA/Proxy is easy to do and then you can leave the rest up to him. That's if he is a good lawyer.

You need to be very careful though what powers you allow him if you don't know him well.

There are a lot of problems with dodgy lawyers and that's why a lot of people do the easy parts themselves. If you do the bulk of it you can be sure that it's done legally. If you leave it to a bad lawyer and he pay's backsheesh for certain elements of it (and paying backsheesh as you know in Egypt can buy you anything if the price is right,) probably hence the huge fees.

If the backsheesh is buying an element which is NOT legal/ under the table ( which is done all the time) then the process will be completed but further down the line you may find that some part of it wasn't legal so you are 'stuffed'.

Paying backsheesh allows an official to turn a blind eye, and dodgy lawyers know the crooked ones to go to.

You MUST have a good lawyer if you want to give them full POA for the sale.
Especially if you are a foreigner.

Thats where a good Estate Agency like our self comes in we have good decents lawyers, in the last 5 years everything as gone well with all our clients getting what they paid for 100%, giving them peace and security knowing all legal documents are genuine.

www.luxor4flats.com - www.egypt4property.com

Good news Keefy

It's hard to find good reputable companies in Egypt.

If you are good, word spreads fast and Egypt needs more decent reliable companies, especially for the foreigners who are thinking of buying.



Best of luck

This sounds more like the signature validity method of registering a sale, as opposed to a full registration of the property.
A lot of people, especially foreigners, assume that just because it has involved a trip to the court that the property is legally theirs. What is in fact actually happening is that the seller is acknowledging that he has SOLD the property, not that he has the LEGAL RIGHT to sell the property.
A signature validity court case is a lot quicker - usually 4-6 months in the courts and doesn't cost as much.
Full court registration is a longer process taking anywhere between 1 and 2 years depending on the court and involves searches of the land registry to ensure that the person now owning the property has the full and legal right to own the property. There is also an additional fee, payable to the court for this. In the past it used to be 3% of the property price listed on the sales contract, and this was the main reason behind writing a lower sale sum on the contract than actually changed hands. The Law has now supposedly changed and this fee has been capped at 2000 LE to encourage more people to fully register their properties instead of doing signature validity.

Sadly a number of foreigners believe that their Signature Validity registration IS a Proper entry into the Land Registry and this is where problems of ownership arise. However, if you are a foreigner, you may not want a Full entry in the land registry as this causes issues further down the line.

Most properties are registered via the Signature Validity method, and there is nothing unusual in it. It is the normal way to make a sale of any kind with a high value as it offers a bit of protection to both parties. It does not protect you from people coming out of the woodwork and laying claim to a tiny percentage of the land that your property is on through an inheritance claim many years later. Only Full Registration of the property and Land ensure this.

Absolutely Goddess.

You have to be sure that if you are doing the Notary registration that you know exactly who owns the land. Anyone can SAY they own it but you need to find out who exactly does. In our case for that property it was no problem.

If you are a foreigner and wanting to buy a property the safest bet is a compound I feel. That way you are guaranteed that the land is owned by the company and it is them you deal with. You can also sell within 5 years.

If you plan to hold onto your property for more than 5 years then other options are available but you have to be SURE that what you buy is actually owned by the seller.