MAKKAH: The heirs of a building worth millions of riyals in Makkah are waiting for the Court of Cassation to issue a verdict against a man who they had appointed to develop the property and generate income on their behalf.
“We have filed a case against the agent at the Makkah General Court to get our contract with him canceled and recover our property — he has not paid us rent or fulfilled the conditions laid down in the contract,” said Ahmad Al-Mesairi, a lawyer representing the heirs.
Al-Mesairi, who is also one of the heirs, said that the agent fraudulently obtained millions of riyals from several investors by leasing the property to them simultaneously.
“According to the contract, the agent was asked to build a 18-story building in the place of an old property that we inherited from our father. The agent was asked to build a villa at the top of the new building where we, the heirs, could come and stay. The contract said the agent should run the property for 15 years and then return it to us, and that he should pay us SR1 million each year in rent,” said Al-Mesairi.
He added that the contract stipulated that the agent should not take partners for the development and running of the property, nor should he transfer the management of the property to a third party. The final clause of the contract outlined that the contract would be canceled without any right of compensation if the agent violated any of the conditions.
“Unfortunately, the agent broke the contractual terms in the first year by bringing in an investment firm and making two investors his partners... They constructed a 15-story building instead of an 18-story one as stipulated in the contract. They also violated the contract by not building the villa,” he said, adding that the agent also failed to pay rent in the first three years.
In 2002, the agent leased the new building to a hotel for five years for SR9 million. Two years later, he renewed the contract with the same person for an additional payment of SR5 million for three more years. In the same year, he extended the lease for another three years by demanding SR4 million from the hotel owner.
The agent had in effect leased the building to the hotel for a total of 11 years for SR18 million. Using some forged documents, he again leased the building in 2005 to another person for SR8 million for 10 years. In the same year, he took a bank loan worth SR10 million with the building as collateral, Al-Mesairi said. “I learned later that the agent cheated five other Saudi investors by simultaneously leasing the property for huge amounts of cash,” he added.
Al-Mesairi said the heirs could not initiate any effective legal action against the man because they did not have evidence to prove his swindling operations and because of certain loopholes in the contracts.
In 2005, Al-Mesairi started court proceedings to get the contract canceled and recover the property.
A local court ruled in favor of the heirs and ordered the agent to pay SR1.4 million in compensation for not building the villa. However, the agent failed to pay the sum and appealed to the ruling at the Court of Cassation, Al-Mesairi said.
The heirs are now awaiting the court’s ruling on the case.
