Red Sea Land Deals Done by Power of Attorney Now Go to a Review Committee
Decision No. 1062 of 2026 says the governorate's local units deal only with the original contract holder — or, if that person has died, the heirs. Every land application resting on a power of attorney to sell or buy is now referred to a supreme committee first.
29 September 2026
Red Sea Governor Walid Abdel Azim El-Barqi has issued Decision No. 1062 of 2026, setting out who the governorate's local authorities may deal with over land plots inside its cities — and sending every application based on a power of attorney to sell or buy to a committee for review, according to Al-Masry Al-Youm.
Article 1 states that dealings over a plot are conducted with the original contracting party. If that person has died, the local unit deals with the heirs, or with whoever represents them under a management power of attorney.
Article 2 is the part that will reach property owners. Applications submitted by citizens over plots on the basis of a power of attorney that includes disposal by sale and purchase — or a management power of attorney — are referred to the Supreme Committee formed by the governor's Decision No. 998 of 2026. The committee reviews files passed to it by the relevant departments in each city's local unit before any step is taken on them.
Article 3 obliges the local units of the governorate's cities, each within its remit, to implement the decision and circulate it to all the authorities concerned with land files.
The decree cites Law 43 of 1979 on local administration, Law 81 of 2016 on the civil service and Law 119 of 2008, the unified building law, alongside the earlier decision that created the committee. Its stated purpose is to check the documents and the legal position of each plot before applications are approved, to verify that the powers of attorney submitted are genuine, and to stop dealings on land passing between several parties in an unregulated or unlawful way.
Some residents have already questioned what the extra step will do to the time it takes to finish building and licence applications, and have asked for the procedure to be spelled out, Al-Masry Al-Youm reports.
In practice, anyone whose claim to a plot in Hurghada, Safaga, El Quseir, Marsa Alam or any other city in the governorate rests on a power of attorney rather than on the original contract should expect their file to pass through the committee. The decree as reported does not say how long that review will take, whether applications already in the pipeline are affected, or whether any fee attaches to the referral.