Habous property in Morocco
status, leasing and valuing the right held

1. Habous — an asset tied up for the benefit of a pious purpose

Habous (a mortmain asset) is a property tied up (immobilised) for the benefit of a charitable or pious purpose. Where melk — ordinary private freehold — is freely sold, transferred and mortgaged, habous is, by its very nature, removed from the ordinary stream of legal commerce: it is allocated, on a lasting basis, to a purpose that transcends it. This is exactly what our overview of the five land statuses in Morocco recalls, where habous ranks among the regimes furthest from market logic.

Two families are classically distinguished:

• Public habous: its income funds a work of general interest — upkeep of mosques, charitable actions, religious teaching. It is the most common form behind the commercial stock of the medinas.
• Private (or family) habous: the asset is allocated for the benefit of descendants designated by the settlor, with a final reversion to the endowment once the beneficiary line dies out. Historically, it serves to protect family wealth from inheritance dispersal.

In both cases, the common trait is decisive for real estate: the asset is not sold like an ordinary one. This is not just one administrative constraint among others — it is the core of the status.

2. Inalienability in principle — and the exchange exception

The principle is inalienability: a habous asset is not transferred through a free sale between private parties. The only recognised route to remove it from its immobilisation is the exchange mechanism (substituting one asset for another, of at least equivalent value), regulated and subject to authorisation. This exchange does not turn habous into a market asset: it replaces one footprint with another, without breaking the allocation to the pious purpose.

Two direct consequences follow, which any buyer or lender must take on board:

• No free transfer. Promising the "sale" of habous walls is, save within the exchange framework, devoid of legal effect. What is transferred is the use or the right held, not ownership of the footprint.
• No mortgage security under normal conditions. A bank does not lend against an asset it could not realise: an asset that cannot be freely transferred cannot serve as conventional security either. Credit secured against habous walls is, in practice, closed off.

3. Leasing: the real gateway to habous

If habous cannot be sold, it can be leased — and that is how the market accesses it. Operation runs through leases, sometimes very long: a 99-year long lease (emphyteutic lease) is in no way exceptional on a habous footprint, as illustrated by the case of an agricultural estate including some twenty hectares of habous operated in this way. This long lease gives the operator real visibility, without ever conferring ownership of the walls.

In old medinas — Fès, Marrakech, Salé, Tétouan — a notable share of the commercial stock is tied to habous endowments: shops, stalls and craft units are leased, often for several generations. The occupant develops a goodwill and a customer base tied to the location, without owning the walls. The relationship is then twofold: a use governed by the lease, and a commercial activity that has its own value. It is precisely this duality that complicates — and structures — the valuation.

4. Walls, beneficial-use right, goodwill: do not conflate them

The first mistake, on an operated habous asset, is to reason as if on a titled melk and to set a single "asset value". Yet three distinct objects coexist, and only one has a transferable market value:

• The walls (the habous footprint): inalienable, outside the free market. They are not valued at freehold for an ordinary transaction.
• The occupancy / beneficial-use right: what the lease confers on the operator. Its value depends on the lease conditions, its remaining term, its stability and renewal prospects.
• The goodwill: customer base, leasehold right, fixtures and trade attached to the activity. In many cases, this is what actually changes hands between successive operators. The notions of leasehold right and indemnity, developed in our commercial lease guide (law 49-16), remain a useful reading framework — subject to the particularities of the habous status, which should always be verified with a lawyer.

Conflating these three objects leads either to paying for an "ownership" that does not exist, or to under-valuing a perfectly real goodwill. The rigour of the appraisal lies first in separating them.

5. Why freehold is not the benchmark

On a melk asset, the valuation benchmark is freehold: the asset is compared with other freely transferable assets. On a habous asset, this benchmark makes no sense, for a simple reason: freehold is not within the stream of commerce. Comparing a habous unit with an equivalent melk unit would mean comparing two rights of different nature — one transferable, the other not.

The expert therefore reasons differently. The question is not "what is the wall worth" but "what right is actually transferable, and how much is it worth". This logic matches the one we apply to any asset whose ownership is not fully secured: value follows the right, not the physical footprint. And as with restricted regimes — collective land or guich land —, the gap with an equivalent melk can be considerable: public habous commonly bears a discount of the order of 40 to 60 % relative to a comparable freehold. This is not an official scale but an order of magnitude observed in valuation practice, to be adjusted case by case.

6. The expert's method: isolate what is transferable, translate uncertainty

Valuing an asset tied to a habous endowment follows a three-step approach, anchored in RICS standards:

• Verify the status and the right held: confirm the habous nature (public or private), read the lease (term, conditions, renewal arrangements) and identify exactly what the occupant holds — occupancy right, goodwill, fit-out. The Real Property Rights Code 39-08 governs ordinary real property rights; the special habous regime is verified in parallel with the competent authorities.
• Isolate what is transferable: set aside the value of the walls (outside the free market) and focus the analysis on the transferable right. For a commercial unit, this most often means valuing the goodwill and the occupancy right against the location's ability to generate income — a logic close to the one set out in our eviction indemnity calculation method.
• Translate uncertainty into value: the relative precariousness of the right (lease term, renewal uncertainty, status conditions) is reflected as a justified discount or, if uncertainty is significant, as a value range rather than a single figure — in line with the RICS Red Book, which requires any material uncertainty to be flagged.

Habous property also often sits alongside other features of old land — medina riads, adoular deeds, family undivided ownership. For medina assets in particular, our work distinguishing the diversity of land situations the expert must untangle before even discussing price applies in full.

7. What this changes for you, in practice

• You are taking over a shop in the medina: you are not buying walls, you are buying a goodwill and an occupancy right. Have what is actually transferable valued — the asking price must reflect the right, not a fictitious ownership.
• You manage private habous wealth: the value of the rights held deserves to be documented for a partition, an arbitration between beneficiaries or an exchange file — always in a logic of enjoyment, never of free transfer.
• You are arranging financing: do not expect a bank to take habous walls as security. It is the activity and the goodwill that carry the economic value, not the footprint.

In all these cases, an independent (non-judicial) appraisal informs the negotiation and supports the decision — it does not replace the judge. In a dispute taken to court, it is the court that appoints the expert; our role is to arm your file beforehand, with an independent and methodical report that helps you support your position with third parties.

Note: The habous regime is governed by specific texts and prevailing administrative practice. Inalienability in principle, the exchange mechanism and leasing conditions must be verified case by case with the competent authorities, a notary or a lawyer; the discount ranges cited are orders of magnitude observed in valuation practice, never an official scale. To document the value of the right attached to a habous asset, use our independent RICS appraisal service and browse more analyses on the ReaConsult blog.