The Law on the Requirement to Register Real Estate Transactions (enacted 2024) was adopted with the aim of structuring immovable property transactions and obligatory registration of deeds pertaining to them. Under this law, the registration of any legal act relating to immovable property in the Organizing Private Deeds System is obligatory, so as to grant validity to such transactions before judicial and quasi-judicial authorities. However, despite the legislature’s intention to establish order in the registration and judicial pursuit of transactions, prevent crime and damage, reduce tax evasion, and facilitate existing legal processes, in practice the implementation of this law has given rise to numerous legal challenges. With the law’s applicability in the family sphere, particularly given the sensitivities surrounding such disputes, the challenges of the aforementioned law—especially as they pertain to the enforcement of mahriyeh and the conflicts arising in its implementation and laws governing family matters—prove to be of paramount importance.
The present article seeks, through a critical and practical analytical approach, to address two challenges arising from the confluence of The Law on the Requirement to Register Real Estate Transactions and the enforcement of mahriyeh by the wife: First, the challenges regarding the validity of private deeds issued prior to the enactment and enforcement of the law, and the inquiry into unregistered properties of the husband’s assets list by the Execution offices, are analyzed. Subsequently, the manner in which such assets are presented to family courts for in order to enforcing mahriyeh by the wife—currently marked by conflict decisions and inconsistent judicial approaches—is critically examined. Second, the legal challenges of registering immovable property as mahriyeh and its enforcement are studied. Finally, after reviewing and critiquing the aforementioned challenges and scrutinizing the underlying obstacles, practical and operational solutions are proposed. The aim is that, through the application of these solutions, conflicts between The Law on the Requirement to Register Real Estate Transactions and existing family law may be reduced, and judicial security for the enforcement of the wife’s rights as one of her most important legal rights, may be enhanced.