Applications open September 1 for a million residential plots

BAGHDAD — Iraq will open an online platform on Sept. 1 for citizens to apply for serviced residential plots under a government scheme to distribute a million of them, with more than 250,000 secured for the first phase, the government spokesperson said.

Only people who have not previously received state land will be eligible, Haider al-Aboudi told the Iraqi News Agency, with applications checked against records. The government is working with the private sector to provide land with infrastructure rather than bare plots, and the Justice Ministry’s Real Estate Registration Directorate has begun building a national database of property owners for the eligibility checks.

Financing for building on the plots is not settled. “There is a study on this matter, and the most important thing is for citizens to receive their entitlement, while cooperating with banks to establish lending mechanisms,” Aboudi said.

The National Investment Commission said last week the scheme would use a real estate developer model to build fully serviced neighbourhoods. The Agriculture Ministry said in July that only non-productive land near urban centres would be used and that farmland and orchards would not be converted. The scheme covers governorates outside the Kurdistan Region.