JEDDAH: Money and power are the two driving forces behind illegal land grab. Vast tracts of land on the outskirts of Jeddah have, over the past few years, turned into a battleground between illegal real estate investors and municipal authorities.
Samir Ba’sabrain, head of the Monitoring and Land Transgression Committee at the Jeddah Municipality, said big investors, who are aware of the laws they violate, take risks to earn large sums of profit in these multimillion-riyal illegal operations.
The undeveloped overcrowded neighborhoods that have come up on these empty tracts of land are a security hazard, said Ba’sabrain. Speaking about how such land is sold, he said well-connected “big investors” sell land to an allegedly unsuspecting second party — a “small investor” — for a very low price.
“In some cases, secondary investors/buyers are unaware of the proper procedure to purchase real estate,” added Ba’sabrain.
The paved roads on such lands, houses and electricity connections tend to delude small investors about the legitimacy of the business, he said.
As such, investors often overlook the fact that the land they purchased has no proper documents, said a municipality inspector. “They are aware of the risk but with high risk comes high profit,” he added.
The inspector said the municipality’s job becomes very dangerous when dealing with land sharks. Although admitting that they often accept bribes to look the other way, he attributed the culture of accepting bribes to the low wages that municipal employees get.
To get a feel of how much money is made, Arab News spoke to a former low-level investor, Mohammed Al-Harbi, who said he bought a 50 sq. m. plot of land from a big investor over 15 years ago for only SR5,000.
The land, which is located east of the Madinah Highway, had no proper paperwork. “A few years later, I sold it for SR120,000. Today, it is worth around SR400,000 and, to my knowledge, the government has agreed to hand the owner proper paperwork making the purchase legitimate,” he said. “It was worth the risk.”
The municipality is continually demolishing illegal structures. Ba’sabrain added that it is usually a showdown as illegal owners try to prevent the authorities from carrying out demolitions using all means possible.
The area has been a place of conflict for quite sometime. In 2008 at least three people were shot. One shooting took place over a piece of land approximately worth SR10 million. Two parties claimed ownership of the land.
"One of the parties was carrying legitimate ownership documents, the other party was not. He, however, argued his case using the ownership documents of a neighboring real estate stating he is the rightful owner of the land neighboring from the south," he said.
"That wasn't the only case of a land dispute that escalated into violence," said the inspector. "In that particular case an error was committed by court which issued both parties land ownership documents," he added.
"I don't know, but I believe the error was deliberate and done for a good amount of money. It was a mess and smelled very fishy. Some cases I personally viewed involved a deadly combination of judicial corruption and highly influential people," he said.
By law, if an investor starts building on a land he does not own, he will be fined no less than SR10,000 and no more than SR50,000. He can also face 15 to 30 days in prison. Repeated offenders face both.
The owner is also requested to remove any building he may have built within a period of 10 days. If he fails to do so, the concerned committee will level down the area and charge the offender double the demolition expenses.
"We tend to grant them more time, in some cases up to three months, to provide proof of ownership," said Ba'sabrain.
The problem is so rampant that the Kingdom's highest religious authority, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Alsheikh, issued a fatwa this year against the illegal taking of government land.
Six notary public officials were reported to have been prosecuted this year for their involvement in illegally issuing deeds on government lands.
"We have received numerous threats, but we are not going to be intimidated," said Ba'sabrain. "In some cases we had to stop because we were prevented by force. We carried out surprise raids and found those we were raiding had prepared for the action, indicating that corrupt employees had passed on information."
He added, "We had to conduct spontaneous raids during unexpected hours and keep our plan secret to get the job done."
He added that in some cases there are a lot of factors involved, including the use of force, deception and corruption. He said it is sometimes difficult to monitor the areas as land aggressors use clandestine tactics to build. "They keep their operations low profile until they complete their work. They carry out work on the land that is not so visible from afar before moving to areas located on the more visible roads," he said.
In a video footage taken through a cell phone, a number of women made a human barricade to stop municipality workers from demolishing their property. The video showed women carrying pictures of King Abdullah in one hand and waving wooden sticks at municipality workers with the other.
"To solve that problem we called in women prison guards. They drag in their families to prevent us from doing our jobs," he said. "They aim to seek the Kingdom's leaders' sympathy. They claim the lands are their only homes but in reality they are part of a purely illegal business to make large gains; they buy the land for a very small price and aim to sell it for a much higher price," he said.
"Until they do so, they use every means possible to succeed. When we brought women security guards to arrest the women, we found out that some of the women arrested were paid to pose as the owners' wives," he said.
"They throw children's toys in the debris and call in reporters to take shots of those underneath the debris alleging they have no other place to go since the municipality had demolished their homes," he said.
Some municipality employees were reported to have been thrown behind bars, beaten and even bribed to stop them from carrying out their jobs.
