Before the Reservation Fee: Eligibility, Title and Transfer Questions for an Independent Egyptian Lawyer

Most international buyers arrive at an Egyptian coastal purchase through photographs, a payment plan and a conversation with a broker. The legal file usually arrives later — which is precisely the wrong order. A reservation fee is often paid before anyone has confirmed what tenure the unit sits on, who actually holds title, or what the transfer itself will demand of you. The questions below are the ones worth carrying into a meeting with an independent Egyptian lawyer, ideally before any money moves. They are framed for buyers comparing homes in Soma Bay, Somabay, El Gouna, Ras El Hekma or Makadi Heights, but they apply to any Egyptian purchase. None of what follows is legal advice.

Eligibility: Who Can Own What, and Where

Eligibility is the first and most misunderstood layer of an Egyptian purchase. Foreign individuals can and do own residential property in Egypt, but the conditions vary with the type of unit and with whether the development sits on freehold land or on a long-term usufruct arrangement. KÂMO Property Group’s published guidance is deliberately careful here: the rules differ by property type and location, and the exact ownership basis of a specific unit should be confirmed before a buyer commits. Red Sea resort communities are generally structured with international buyers in mind, but generally is not a legal opinion on the apartment or villa you are looking at.

Background reading helps you ask better questions — a guide such as Buying property in Egypt as a foreigner can outline the broad sequence from reservation to registration — but no general article can tell you what applies to a particular phase of a particular development. That requires an Egyptian lawyer reading the developer’s land documents and the contract in front of you.

Take these questions to that meeting: what is the tenure of this exact unit — freehold, usufruct, or something else; if it is usufruct, how long does the term run, is it renewable, is it transferable, and what happens to value on resale; does any nationality-based restriction apply to me specifically; and does the answer change for a ready resale versus an off-plan release?

Some published summaries of Law 230/1996 describe a limit of two residential properties nationwide, each up to 4,000 m², with a five-year disposal lock from acquisition, and describe Red Sea and North Coast mainland as generally freehold for foreign nationals — a different position from parts of Sinai. Treat that as the opening line of a conversation, not the closing one. Ask whether those caps and locks apply to your circumstances, how “residential property” is counted if you already own in Egypt, and whether the plot sits inside a tourism or resort zone with its own rules. Then ask for the conclusion in writing, addressed to the unit, not to the development.

Title: What Exactly Are You Buying?

Title in Egypt does not behave the way many European or North American buyers expect. As KÂMO’s published guide describes it, Egypt has no German-style Notar and Grundbuch system; the sale-and-purchase contract carries much of the weight, and stronger security may involve registration through the Shahr Aqari or a court action validating the seller’s signature. The same guide notes that a large share of Egyptian property is held securely on contract without full registration. That is not a reason to panic — it is a reason to understand precisely which of these positions you will be in.

Contract, registration and the Shahr Aqari

Ask your lawyer to map the chain: who owns the land today, what the developer’s title looks like, whether the project is licensed and its plans approved, and what evidence exists for each prior sale in the unit’s history. For a resale, the chain matters more than the marketing brochure. Outstanding developer instalments, unpaid service charges, mortgages or liens against a seller can all follow the unit rather than staying behind with the person who created them.

Resale versus off-plan paperwork

The two paths generate different documents. A ready resale in an established community such as El Gouna involves inspecting the delivered home and checking whether instalments are still running, and transfers there may also pass through the master developer’s own process. An off-plan purchase — a named release within Somabay, a new phase at Makadi Heights, a villa inside the Ras El Hekma planned city — turns on the unit plan, the payment schedule and the contract’s treatment of delay and handover. Makadi Heights is partially delivered with a phased pipeline, so an older phase and a new release can present quite different paperwork even within one town.

Questions worth asking: what will I physically hold at completion — a registered title, a court-validated contract, or an unregistered contract; if registration is possible, who initiates it, how long does it take, what does it cost and who pays; will the seller or developer cooperate with registration after they have been paid; and what protections exist in the contract if handover slips?

Transfer: From Reservation to Registered Handover

The transfer stage is where a purchase either becomes administratively clean or quietly complicated. The typical sequence runs from reservation to sale-and-purchase contract, through staged payments, to registration. Each step has its own documentation, and each is a point at which a diaspora buyer who is not in the country can lose control of timing.

Currency, payments and protection

Prime coastal stock is increasingly quoted in US dollars or euros, while local settlement happens in Egyptian pounds. Ask how the contract handles that gap: which currency the price is fixed in, how the exchange is calculated, who carries the currency risk between signing and handover, and which figure appears on registration documents. For off-plan, instalments go to the developer against contractual milestones rather than into a notarial escrow. Ask what mechanism, if any, protects those payments and what the contract says about termination and refunds.

Buying from abroad

If you cannot attend in person, a power of attorney will likely be required. Ask whether it must be notarised, consularised or apostilled in your country of residence, whether it must be in Arabic or accompanied by a certified translation, exactly which powers it should grant, and whether the whole transfer can be completed in your absence. Also ask for a clear statement of the total transfer cost — registration, developer transfer fees, notarisation, taxes — and who bears which share.

Transfer-stage questions: what does the developer require before issuing a no-objection certificate; how are outstanding instalments or service charges settled and evidenced on completion; what happens to the seller’s registration before mine is entered; and can the transfer be completed remotely with a power of attorney drafted in my jurisdiction?

This is where specialist coordination earns its keep. KÂMO Property Group describes its role as handling the property search and commercial discussions — comparing resales, off-plan releases and alternative locations across the North Coast, the Red Sea and Cairo — while making clear it is not a law firm, lender or tax adviser, and that it coordinates qualified independent specialists where formal legal, financial or technical advice is needed. A buyer weighing an El Gouna resale against an off-plan apartment at Makadi Heights will find the commercial comparison straightforward and the legal comparison considerably less so: same country, same currency questions, two entirely different sets of documents to verify before a reservation fee leaves the account.