Townhouse

A townhouse is a single-family house of two or more storeys built in a row of similar attached houses that share side walls, each with its own external entrance and often a small private yard or garden. Townhouses usually sit between apartments and detached villas in size and price, but that is a market pattern rather than part of the definition; the defining feature is being attached side by side in a row while keeping a separate entrance and ownership. They are common in new master-planned residential projects and compounds in Saudi cities, often with shared facilities such as gardens, pools, parking and security. A townhouse has no legal category of its own; its position depends on how it is owned. It may stand on a separate plot with its own title deed, or be a sorted unit within a residential complex governed by the Law of Ownership, Sorting and Management of Real Estate Units (Royal Decree M/85 dated 2/7/1441H). In the second case, the side walls between two adjoining units are jointly owned by their owners unless there is a structural separation (Art. 7); the owners must form an owners' association once there are three or more of them and register it with the Real Estate General Authority (REGA) (Art. 12), whose statute sets the rules for owners' contributions to management and maintenance of the common parts; and a "complex association" bringing together representatives of the jointly owned properties in a real-estate complex may be formed (Art. 13). The seller must give the buyer a disclosure statement on the unit, the common parts and their management; if material information is missing, the buyer may rescind within 30 days (Art. 6). Off-plan sales fall under the Off-Plan Sale and Lease of Real Estate Projects Law (Royal Decree M/44 dated 10/3/1445H) and REGA's Wafi platform: the reservation amount during marketing may not exceed 5% of the unit value, and the owners' association is registered from the start of handover of the second unit. In practice, buying a townhouse attracts the 5% Real Estate Transaction Tax instead of VAT, with the Ministry bearing the tax on up to SAR 1,000,000 of an eligible citizen's first home, and ownership costs include a periodic service charge set by the owners' association for the common parts. A residential lease is documented on Ejar for SAR 125 per contract year with no VAT. Before buying, check whether the yard and parking space belong to the unit or are common parts, and read the complex's internal rules on alterations and facades.