Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — The General Authority for Awqaf (GAA) unveiled salient features of a draft regulation for reviving unknown and idle endowments, which is aimed to achieve the objectives, and terms and conditions of donors, and contributes to achieving sustainability for endowments in the Kingdom.

As per the provisions of the regulation, 10 percent of the value of the endowment property will be given as a reward for those who report about “unknown and idle” endowments.

The regulation aimed to encourage the public to report about unknown and idle endowments, which leads to their disclosure and revival. The provisions of the regulation apply to the endowment or will of the unknown and idle endowments, whether they are real estate, movables, or others.

A person who reports the unknown and disabled endowment is entitled to receive a reward. The condition for entitlement to the reward is the acceptance of the report and the completion of all procedures for dealing with the unknown endowment by proving it, removing the encroachments on it, if any, collecting the compensation amount if it was seized, appointing a supervisor over it, and handing it over to the supervisor.

It is required that the person reporting about the unknown endowment should not be the aggressor requesting the exemption or the supervisor of the unknown endowment who requests the authority to deal with it. In the event of multiple persons reporting the same unknown endowment, the first person reporting to the authority is entitled to the reward, unless the authority sees an additional benefit in the new report. If the concerned committee decides to involve more than one person to benefit from the reward for the endowment being reported, the reward shall be distributed among them according to the validity of the documents submitted and the efforts made by them.

The committee shall determine the amount of the reward after completing all procedures for processing and evaluating the unknown endowment, in a financial amount not exceeding 10 percent of the value of the unknown endowment