Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH — Many Saudis believe that imposing owners union program for residential buildings, will not only limit the increase of the apartments rents, but will also decrease the buildings cleaning, maintenance issues, and held divide the expenses between residences.

The Ministry of Housing has sought to set up this union, which is to encourage the culture of community ownership in common housing units, which will benefit the public and the community.

Ali Mohammed, a Saudi father in his mid 30s, said, “Having an owner’s union for each rented building will help a lot in organizing the building responsibilities between houses. The issues of maintenance, electricity, and plumbing would be solved easily.”

Mohsen Khalid, a man in his late 30s, said that implementing such a program is a great idea if there was cooperation and not exploitation of authority by some and stubbornbess in sharing opinion.

“This program will organize our lives since their will be a program that all of us in the building will follow when it comes to cleaning, respecting the neighbors, paying the guard, or other expenses,” he added.

According to Al-Hayat newspaper, lawyers explained that this program aims to regulate the relationship between the owners and the residences. They added that it will be one of the solutions to the housing problems that the Ministry of Housing is seeking to move forward with, expecting it to have a positive impact on society. The government is planning to launch an official website for the owners union program.

Economic analyst Dr. Salah Shalhoub told Al-Hayat that the owners union program is vital development program that will reduce the randomness. He added that this program will contribute to the expansion in terms of appropriate ownership and if there is a problem the parties refer to the union.