Article 22 of the Saudi Real Estate Registration Law

This article deals with a special kind of document: legally documented instruments received from the relevant bodies. The rule is that the content of these instruments is registered in the real estate register in the order they reach the competent authority.

The criterion here is the order of receipt: what reaches the competent authority first is registered first. The article does not name the relevant bodies or the types of instruments, but requires only that they be legally documented and received from those bodies.

Subject to Article 20: The article makes this rule subject to what Article 20 provides, the most important of which are:

• Recording requests according to the date and hour of their submission, as the Regulations specify.
• Treating a registration request as if it had never been made if the supporting documents are not submitted within 30 days from the date the request was submitted.
• No registration may be made if the real estate register contains restrictions that prevent dealing in the property.
• Examining multiple requests concerning the same property by priority of their registration.

The chronological order of receipt therefore does not override these controls; if the register contains a restriction preventing dealing, registration is not made even if the instrument arrives documented.

Article 21 provides the right of grievance for a person notified that his request was rejected, that his priority lapsed, or that proceedings were stayed. Anyone with a documented instrument whose registration was delayed or conflicted with another request would do well to consult a lawyer specialized in real estate matters.