Buying a riad in the medina: the six stages

Buying in the medina is not an ordinary property purchase. The building is old, often held jointly by heirs, sometimes occupied, and reached through a derb no truck can enter. Here is the real path, in the order it actually unfolds.

1. Decide the use before the budget

A riad meant to be a guest house is not the same property as a private one. The first needs en-suite bedrooms, a working kitchen, a usable terrace and reasonable access for travellers and their luggage. The second can live with a narrow derb and an unusual layout. Choosing the use first halves the number of properties worth visiting.

2. Visit, measure, and distrust advertised surfaces

In the medina, the advertised surface is rarely the measured surface. It often includes the patio, sometimes a terrace, sometimes an adjoining room that is not part of the title. Have the surfaces measured on site, floor by floor, and insist on the distinction between ground surface and liveable surface.

3. Check the title before negotiating

This is the stage people skip and later regret. A property can be offered by someone who holds only an undivided share, without the agreement of the other heirs. It can carry a right of way for a neighbour. It can have been "under registration" for ten years.

• Who appears on the deed, and for what share?
• Is the property registered, under registration, or held under a simple melkia?
• Are there rights of way, of view, of drainage?
• Is the property occupied, and on what basis?

Until the legal file is clean, the price is beside the point: there is nothing to buy.

4. Cost the works item by item

A lump-sum quote is a useless quote. Ask for the detail: structure and roof, terrace waterproofing, electrical and sanitary services, joinery, and only then the traditional finishes. Structural work absorbs most of the budget and never shows in photographs; yet it decides how the building stands ten years from now.

5. Signing, before a notary or an adoul

A registered property is sold by notarial deed, then entered at the land registry. A melkia property is traditionally sold by adoular deed. In both cases, budget for registration duties, land registry fees and professional fees: the amounts depend on the price and the nature of the property, and change with the annual finance act. Have them costed before signature, not after.

6. The building site, then operation

Allow time between signature and first guest: the works, the permits, and the classification if you run it as a guest house. That is the delay our listings call "months before operation", and it weighs more heavily on the first year's yield than anything else.

This guide describes common practice; it does not replace a notary's or a lawyer's opinion on your own file.