Central Bank of Bahrain Governor
Rasheed Mohammed Al Maraj recently issued a decree on property
development management, appointing a secretary of real estate development in
compliance with a 2014 law for more effective oversight.
The resolution pertains to the administration of real estate development
escrow accounts and financial agencies involved in backing future property
development projects.
Private companies are obliged to create a separate bank account in
the name of each project
licensed by the kingdom’s retail banks. The resolution requires the secretary not to
subject any project account to reassignment or transformation; not to allow access to restricted data
except in the case of a judicial order or at the request of the public
prosecutor; and to provide payroll
and revenue information as needed.
It also creates guidelines for project cancellation
terms, certificates of completion and other payment regulations, as well as
establishing transparency for various parties involved in the projects such as
engineers, financiers, etc.
Article V of the resolution states in part that the project
account secretary must “provide management with the relevant licensing …
payroll quarterly revenues and payments project account, and any information or
data requested by found to need … and provide a statement of account to the
master developer in the event of termination of the agreement or close the
project account before the completion of the implementation.”
