Two questions settle most of these files before they go wrong: who has to sign for full ownership to pass? and what is the right actually being conveyed worth? Neither is answered by looking at the property.
1. What your client is selling is not always “the property”
On the ground we talk about selling a flat or selling a plot. In law, what is conveyed is a real right over that asset — and that right is not always full ownership. The Real Rights Code (Law 39-08) distinguishes ownership from its dismemberments: one may hold the usufruct — the right to use the property and to take its fruits — without the bare ownership, or the reverse. One may own the soil but not the structure standing on it (surface right). One may own land burdened by an easement in favour of a neighbour.
For the agent the stake is plain: sign a mandate without qualifying the right actually being conveyed and you are marketing something your seller cannot deliver on his own. It is the quiet cause behind a share of preliminary contracts that never complete. Far better to know at the mandate stage than at signature — and the reading discipline that gets you there is set out in our note on reading the land title before taking a mandate. This article takes the next step: what each of these rights does to who signs and to what the asset is worth.
2. Usufruct and bare ownership: the owner who is only half an owner
The commonest dismemberment in Morocco comes out of family transmission. A parent gifts the property to the children while reserving the usufruct — continuing to live there or to collect the rents — and the children receive the bare ownership. The rules governing usufruct sit in the Real Rights Code 39-08.
The consequence for the sale is structural: the bare owner alone cannot convey full ownership. Either the life tenant and the bare owner sell together, apportioning the price according to the value of each right, or your client conveys only his bare ownership — a far narrower market, and a discounted one. Before you promise the seller a full-ownership price, establish from the land title who holds the usufruct.
- At the mandate. Ask directly: are you the full owner, or is there a usufruct? Then confirm it against a recent certificate of ownership rather than against the answer.
- On price. Bare ownership is worth less the younger the life tenant, because the usufruct will run longer. The relationship is monotonic and well understood; the magnitude is not a matter of guesswork, and it is not set in the car park after the viewing.
- At closing. If a sale in full ownership is the objective, have the life tenant and the bare owner both sign from the preliminary contract onwards, on the notary's advice.
Where the property is also held in undivided shares — the frequent companion of an inherited asset — the mandate raises a further set of questions addressed in our note on handling a mandate on an undivided or inherited property.
3. Easements: the invisible neighbour who weighs on the price
An easement is a burden imposed on one parcel — the servient land — for the benefit of another, the dominant land: a right of way, drainage of water, a right of light or outlook, a restriction on building. The commonest is the right of way, particularly where a plot is landlocked and has no direct access to the public highway. Creation, registration and extinction are set out in our note on property easements under the Real Rights Code 39-08.
For the agent, two situations must be kept apart:
- Your property is the servient land — it bears the easement. Its market value is reduced, and the buyer will want the reduction explained. Anticipating the discount is always cheaper than absorbing it under pressure in negotiation.
- Your property is the dominant land — it benefits from the easement, for instance a way that relieves it from being landlocked. That is an asset, but only where the easement is properly constituted and registered. A right exercised in fact for years without a registered entry can be contested, and a contestable access is a buyer's reason to walk.
The reflex, then: read the entries on the land title, and where there is doubt — a way used for years without title, a landlocked plot — have the situation recorded on site. That is exactly what a valuerdocuments, with photographs and a plan, so that what you tell the buyer is evidenced rather than asserted. The buyer's own parallel checks are set out in our buyer's guide to verifying a land title.
4. Surface right (zina, houa): when soil and structure have two owners
A feature very much alive in Morocco: the surface right allows ownership of the soil to be separated from ownership of the structure or the plantations upon it (zina), and even from ownership of stacked storeys (houa). The framework again sits in the Real Rights Code 39-08.
The commercial consequence is major. If your seller owns the structure but not the soil, or the reverse, he is not selling “the house”. The buyer acquires a limited right, sometimes for a fixed term and sometimes subject to a ground payment — and a buyer who discovers that after the viewing rarely comes back. A good number of apparently simple files turn out, once the title has been read, to be conveyances of a surface right. Spotting it early stops you promising what cannot be delivered.
5. Why these rights discount — and why an improvised reduction costs you
Usufruct, easement, surface right, undivided shares: each reduces the value of the right conveyed against clean full ownership. The question is always by how much, and that is where the agent is exposed. Quote too high and the property does not move; concede an improvised reduction under pressure in negotiation and you leave money — and fee — on the table.
A defensible discount is calculated: the probable duration of the usufruct, the nature and physical extent of the easement, the terms and remaining term of the surface right, the size of the undivided share. The reasoning is set out in our note on discounts and adjustments in valuation, for undivided shares and usufruct. Orders of magnitude circulate; no percentage is reproduced here, because a discount detached from the file it came from is exactly the figure that gets quoted back as a rule. What can be said plainly is that two apparently identical properties can be worth materially different amounts according to whether one is held in full ownership and the other in bare ownership behind a running usufruct — and that the gap is a computed value, not a rebate.
6. The valuer values, you sell
Let us be exact about the roles, because that is what makes the partnership possible. ReaConsult takes no sales mandate and performs no intermediation: we do not market property, so we are not your competitor. Our trade is valuation — establishing a value and a report complying with Red Book standards, prepared by RICS-certified experts.
- You keep the client. The valuer supports the file; the client, the relationship and the fee remain yours.
- You secure the deal. An independent report gives buyer and seller a common basis and defuses the reflex haggle on an unusual asset.
- You gain standing. Presenting a dismembered or burdened property with the price reasoned and evidenced distinguishes you from a competitor working on impression.
- Cross-referral. For partner agencies we run a mutual recommendation arrangement — we refer owners who approach us wanting to sell; you refer the files that need valuing. The terms are set out in our note on partnering with a RICS appraisal firm.
One point on the status of the report, worth getting right in front of clients. A private valuationserves the decision and the arm's-length negotiation between the parties: it frames the price, and its conclusion is documented and verifiable line by line. It is not a judicial instrument, and it should never be presented as one — including in the softer formulations that describe an easement or a report as though a third party were bound by it.
7. The pre-mandate reflexes on a dismembered or burdened property
- Name the right. Not “a villa in Souissi” but “full ownership”, “bare ownership subject to a reserved usufruct”, “an undivided share”, “a surface right”. Write it into the mandate in those words.
- Identify every signature required. Life tenant, bare owner, co-owners of undivided shares, holder of the soil: list who must be a party for the intended transfer to complete, and confirm the list with the notary.
- Qualify the easements both ways. Servient (a discount to anticipate) or dominant (a benefit to secure)? Registered or merely exercised in fact? Is the plot landlocked?
- Check that soil and structure share an owner. If not, establish the term of the surface right and any ground payment attaching to it.
- Price the right, not the building. Where the property is dismembered or burdened, obtain the valuation before you fix the mandate price rather than after the first offer.
Reports comply with Red Book standards and are delivered in 5 to 8 days, 48-72 hours on the express service, from 3,500 MAD excl. tax, with a firm quote within 24 hours. ReaConsult has been advising owners and investors since 2019, with more than 5,000 valuations completed, offices in 6 cities and a rating of 4.9/5 across 47 reviews.
A mandate on a dismembered or burdened property? Have the right actually being conveyed valued before the price is set.
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Note:usufruct, easements and the surface right fall under the Real Rights Code (Law 39-08). No discount percentage or scale is quoted here: the orders of magnitude that circulate are illustrative and are rendered qualitatively for that reason, since each case is computed on its own file. The exact legal position of a right is confirmed with the notary and against the ANCFCC register. A private valuation informs a decision and an arm's-length negotiation; it is not a judicial instrument. To have the right actually being conveyed valued, see our contact page or the property blog.