Skip to content

Owners’ association guides

A practical guide to owners’ associations in Saudi Arabia: what they are, the law that governs them, how to establish one, what the chairman does, how the fees work and how an owners’ association differs from an owners’ society. Plain-language articles in Arabic and English, with their official sources.

  1. Owners’ association: the complete guide

    An owners’ association, often called an owners’ union, is the body the unit owners of a shared property, such as a building or residential complex, form to manage, maintain and organise the use of its common parts. Saudi law requires one to be formed and registered with the Real Estate General Authority once there are three or more owners. A general assembly of owners, a chairman and a property manager run it, and owners share its costs.

  2. Owners’ association law in Saudi Arabia

    Owners’ association law in Saudi Arabia is the Law of Ownership, Subdivision and Management of Real Estate Units (Royal Decree M/85, 1441H) and its executive regulation; the Real Estate General Authority (REGA) registers and regulates associations through Mullak. Once a shared property has three or more owners, they must form and register an owners’ association. Day-to-day work takes a management system: software such as Jiwar.

  3. How to establish an owners’ association, step by step

    An owners’ association, often still called an owners’ union, must be set up once a shared property has three or more owners of subdivided units. You start from subdivided units with title deeds, register the association with the Real Estate General Authority on Mullak within thirty days of founding, then call the first general assembly to adopt the by-laws, elect the chairman and appoint the property manager.

  4. Duties and responsibilities of an owners’ association chairman

    An owners’ association chairman, formally the chairman of the general assembly, is an owner the assembly elects from among its members for a renewable three-year term to call and chair its meetings and follow up its decisions. Day-to-day running (maintenance, contractors, collecting contributions, spending) is the law’s “property manager” role; the chairman works with the manager and does not decide what belongs to the general assembly.

  5. Owners’ association fees: how they are calculated and who pays

    Owners’ association fees are contributions unit owners pay to manage a shared property and maintain its common parts, such as lifts, corridors, cleaning and security. The manager drafts an annual budget, the general assembly approves it, and each owner pays in proportion to their unit’s share of the total unit area. The owner stays liable even when the unit is leased, unless agreed otherwise with the tenant.

  6. Owners’ society vs owners’ association: what is the difference?

    There is no legal difference between a jam‘iyyat al-mullak (owners’ society) and an ittihad al-mullak (owners’ union, usually called an owners’ association in English): both name the body that unit owners in a shared property form to manage its common parts. “Owners’ society” is the official term in the Saudi law, its regulation and REGA’s Mullak platform; “owners’ union” spread with a former Ministry of Housing programme and remains more common in speech and search.