Article 659 of the Saudi Civil Transactions Law

المادة 659 من نظام المعاملات المدنية · الفرع الثاني: أسباب كسب الملكية أولًا: إحراز المباحات

The article provides that where more than one preemptor comes together, each one's entitlement to preemption is in proportion to his share.

Official text (Arabic)

This article has not been amended since the law was issued.

إذا اجتمع أكثر من شفيع كان استحقاق كل منهم من الشفعة على قدر نصيبه.

This is the official Arabic wording, the only legally binding version. We do not translate the law itself; the explanation below is ours. Official source: Bureau of Experts at the Council of Ministers

Article 659 explained in plain English

This article deals with the case of multiple preemptors, meaning more than one co-owner who has the right to take the sold real estate by preemption.

Preemption, as defined in Article 658, is the right of a co-owner to acquire the sold real estate for the price at which it was sold plus its expenses.

What the article provides:

If more than one preemptor comes together, none of them takes all of the sold real estate for himself.
Each one's entitlement to preemption is in proportion to his share; whoever has a larger share in the jointly owned real estate is entitled to a larger portion of the sold share.

This means that the division among the preemptors is not necessarily equal, but according to the proportions each of them owns. The article does not address what happens if some preemptors wish to take by preemption and others do not, so this explanation does not cover that.

This article is related to Article 660, which deals with the case where the buyer sells the real estate to someone else before the preemptor has been notified of the wish to take by preemption, and provides that the preemptor then takes it only at the price at which it was sold to the second buyer plus its expenses.

Because calculating the shares and distributing them among the preemptors may cause disagreement, consulting a lawyer who specializes in real estate matters is advised.

Practical example

A building in Makkah is owned by four co-owners: Khaled 40%, Saad 30%, Fahd 20% and Majed 10%. Majed sold his share to a person from outside the co-owners, and the other three wished to take by preemption. Each of them is entitled to part of Majed's share in proportion to his own share, so Khaled takes the largest part of it because his share is the largest.

Translated from our Arabic explanation with machine assistance. For guidance only; it does not replace advice from a lawyer on your situation.

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