About 57,304 citizens have updated their data on residential land applications in the Sultanate till Saturday, announced the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning.

This comes as the ministry earlier requested citizens who have applied for land plots in Muscat and Salalah between 2008 and 2011, and citizens who applied for land plots in Qurayat and the rest of the governorates between 2008 and 2015 to urgently update their data so the ministry will proceed with dealing with the applications according to the priority issued within the Royal Decree 42 – 20121.

Dr Khalfan bin Said al Shueili, Minister of Housing and Urban Planning, said in a statement to TV that the stability of families is a priority and the new regulations will reduce the waiting period for a family that does not own a home or land suitable for construction.

“Giving Omani families the right to own property is one of the most important objectives of the new law,” he said. He added that the last decree was issued in 1984, and living conditions and realities were completely different, confirming that old housing applications will not be cancelled, and we will deal with the matter professionally.

“After Eid Al Fitr, the ministry launched a programme to study land requests and create a specific mechanism to determine eligibility. Over the past ten years show that 334,000 land plots were distributed in various governorates, and women received 78 per cent of it, but the urbanisation rate did not exceed seven per cent. Also, around 4,000 plots of land are now ready for distribution.”

The minister clarified that the law does not link the Omani family to marriage, as every person who has never been married has the right to apply. “No citizen will lose his or her right to acquire land, but it will bring them closer to obtaining land.”

He added that even citizens with housing loans have the right to obtain residential land. “There are many requests for social housing, and the ministry has distributed 500 social housing at a value RO 15 million, and we have the housing aid programme with a budget of RO 20 million.”

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