KUWAIT CITY, Feb 1: The Finance and Economic Committee of the National Assembly is expected to meet soon to find a solution to the issue of Kuwaitis who are victims of a real estate fraud, reports Al-Jarida daily. The daily added the number of people affected by the real estate fraud until 2019 reached about 11,000, and the total value of their losses amounted to the equivalent of 3 billion dinars. The fraudsters allegedly use cheating and deceptive methods that lead to making a person mistaken, forcing him to hand over money in his possession.

Chairman of the Finance Committee, Representative Ahmad Al-Hamad, said the committee will discuss the most important proposals to address the real estate fraud and ways to compensate those affected. The meeting will be held in the presence of the ministers of Finance and Justice, while sources said the committee spares no effort to solve this issue through legislation to compensate the citizens affected by the real estate fraud and punish the fraudsters. The most prominent parliamentary proposal provides for the establishment of a fund to compensate those affected by real estate fraud operations, affiliated with the Ministry of Finance, whose headquarters will be the office of the said ministry or one of its affiliated facilities, and to finance this fund from the state’s general reserve, provided that the fund disburses 80% of the amount due, according to what the committee decides an estimate of the compensation, provided that the remaining 20% is paid after the court has paid it, or the state is executing it on his money. The fund aims to compensate those affected by real estate fraud and those in whose favor the verdicts have been issued ordering the real estate firms to compensate the victims. As for the compensation assessment committee, a decision has been issued by the Minister of Finance to form this committee.

The proposal stipulated that each victim who was a victim of the real estate fraud process submits a request to the Receiving Requests Committee, within 90 days from the date of the issuance of the final judgment, and if he obtained final judgments before the issuance of this law, then the aforementioned 90-day period begins from the date of publication of this law.

The Compensation Fund for those affected by real estate fraud cases shall have a lien on the money of the convict, provided that this right takes precedence over all public and private privileges mentioned in the Civil Code, and it also takes precedence over all mortgages restricted on the properties of the convict. The explanatory note to the proposal for a law on the establishment of a fund to compensate those affected by real estate fraud has spread in our society, and has become a phenomenon that threatens the economic impact in society, and affects the financial disclosure of individuals, due to the fraudulent means used by real estate companies to steal all or some of the wealth of others using methods that will delude people into the existence of a false and illusory project. The sources said, the state had to redress the damage done to its citizens, remove harm from it and protect their financial centers from collapse by issuing legislation to protect citizens affected by real estate fraud cases, and the existence of legislative shortcomings in the laws regulating the movement of buying and selling in the real estate market in the State of Kuwait.

It is necessary to establish a fund for victims of real estate fraud cases. In view of the failure of the executive authority to perform the tasks entrusted to it, we proceeded to draft a law to compensate those affected by real estate fraud. It is noteworthy that the Ministry of Commerce and Industry has lodged a number of complaints against groups of real estate companies, and their number has reached 1,178 complaints to date. The Ministry has referred a number of these companies to the Public Prosecution for allegedly committing fraud and violating the money laundering law, knowing that the contracts submitted under these complaints date from 2003 to 2018, and a number of real estate companies have been referred to the Public Prosecution on suspicion of fraud and money laundering. Al-Hamad added the committee will also continue discussions on the issue of developing the northern region and Failaka Island within the committee’s plan and priorities, and hear the government’s opinion in this regard.