Algeria : new law to settle landowners' situation

Algerian authorities are working on new measures concerning the delivery of official documents for citizens, being landowners or renters, according to conditions established by the relevant services.

• One of the conditions required in the dossier for such a procedure, the existence of a so called “identity card” of the piece of land delivered by an expert in which he mentions a series of information related to this property, including the size, the value and the number of workers.
• According to the law signed by the Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem, the request could be done individually, in which case a simple accord from the real estate’s officer of the given province is enough.
• In case of a collective request, the intervention of the mayor is required to supervise the operation. In this respect, the time period required for such an operation must be at least two weeks, before keeping a record at the level of the different administrations.
• Prior to the delivery of the property documents, a thorough investigation conducted by the local authorities to collect all the information concerning the legal status of the land to be made public at the town hall. If no complaint is mentioned, the expert will proceed to a definite record of the real estate.
• The new law will force thousands of Algerians to go to the court to settles their conflicts due to the anarchy inherited from the old colonial system which. To recall some 36 thousand real estates’ conflicts are still pending since the seventies.