Freehold or usufruct in Makkah and Madinah

The first question is who may own here. In Makkah and Madinah the zone answers it, because a non-Saudi buys only inside one of the designated geographic zones, and only as a Muslim individual. Eleven named areas in Makkah carry that designation.

Then comes a second question, what would I hold. The zone does not answer it. All 22 zone cards permit both full ownership and a usufruct of up to 99 years, so a card cannot tell you which one you are being sold. The answer lies in what the developer chooses to sell, which may be your name on a title deed with no time limit, a right of use for a fixed term registered against someone else’s title, or a lease. The same building can contain all three.

Buyers often treat the two questions as one, and sellers rarely correct them. The Abraj Al Bait towers, the most photographed buildings in Makkah, show why they should be kept apart.

The Abraj Al Bait towers stand on land King Fahd endowed as the King Abdulaziz Endowment for the Two Holy Mosques, and the complex was developed on a build-operate-transfer basis with a use term of 35 Hijri years. A waqf cannot be sold as freehold, so anything sold in those towers had to be an interest for a term.

At handover in 2013 the residences were offered on a 23-year leasehold, with the option of placing the apartment in a rental pool run by Fairmont Hotels & Resorts. The outlets that covered the launch four years earlier used the same word, leasehold, and one of them described it as a timeshare programme. A later broker listing quotes 25 years from handover, and no source we reviewed reconciles the two figures.

None of this made the purchase improper. Buyers who understood the term got a serviced apartment a few steps from the Mataf for the years it covered. Buyers who believed they owned a flat outright did not, and the gap between the two widens every year as the term runs down.

Registered ownership puts your name on the title in the Real Estate Registry, with no time limit. Once registered, a title acquires absolute legal effect after one full year from publication of the owners’ lists if no objection is filed. This is what “freehold” should mean when a seller uses the word.

A usufruct is a right to use, let and sell on a property for a term, registered against a title that stays with someone else. In Makkah and Madinah the term can run to 99 years. Its value falls as the term shortens, which is how the product works, and the price should reflect it.

A lease is a shorter interest for a term, and it is what the Clock Tower residences were sold as.

The glossary sets the first two side by side, under “Freehold vs usufruct”.

For the projects a non-Saudi can buy into now, we looked for the tenure in each developer’s own published material, and the register below gives the result project by project. Four cases stand out.

Knowledge Economic City states that eligible non-Saudi buyers complete the requirements on the Saudi Properties portal before purchasing and receive their title deed following handover. A deed on handover indicates registered ownership; the words freehold and usufruct do not appear.

Jabal Omar described its Address Makkah hotel units as available for freehold ownership at their 2018 launch. That statement is the developer’s own, made through sponsored content, and it concerns an earlier phase; the company’s current programme is to sell 400 existing hotel residential units during 2026 as a first phase. What a buyer of one of those units would hold is not stated in the announcement.

Rua Al Madinah markets its Fairmont-branded residences through a register-your-interest page. Whether those units come as registered ownership or as a usufruct is not stated in the developer and press material we reviewed.

Masar shows the difference. Umm Al Qura’s announcement that the destination is designated for non-Saudi ownership describes the zone; the tenure of the individual units sold there is not stated. A unit there is inside a zone, and its buyer has still not been told what they are buying.

Before any money moves, ask in writing whether the unit is sold as registered ownership or as a usufruct right and, if a usufruct, for how many years, from what date and with what happening at the end of the term. The register below gives the question in English and Arabic, ready to send.

Then have the answer written into the contract. Wafi already requires a developer to disclose the project’s status and to use a sales agreement with handover dates specified by day. A term of years belongs in the same document, in the same detail. Do not reserve with a seller who will not put it in writing.

The zone tells you whether you may buy. Only the developer can tell you what you are buying, and for most projects selling today they have not yet said so in public. Ask in writing before you reserve, and use the register below to see who has answered.