MPs seek housing eligibility based on income at application only

Parliament will on Tuesday vote on a proposal to base eligibility for public housing on an applicant’s monthly income at the time the application is filed, without a second check when the nomination card is issued.

The motion comes from MPs Bader Al Tamimi, Dr Ali Al Nuaimi, Hamad Al Doy, Abdulla Al Dhaen and Abdulwahid Qarata. They say housing applicants often wait for many years before a unit is allocated, during which ordinary pay rises can push them over the upper income limit and lead to their files being rejected.

Current rules, laid down in Ministerial Decision No. 909 of 2015 and amended by Decision No. 900 of 2024, require that an applicant’s monthly income does not exceed BD900 at the time of applying and does not exceed BD1,200 when the nomination certificate is issued.

Wait

In practice, according to the proposers, the wait between the first application and receipt of a nomination certificate can stretch to five years or longer, and in some cases the wait for a suitable unit can reach 15 years. They argue that, over such a long period, it is normal for a person’s income to rise above BD1,200, even by a small margin, and that this rise then becomes a reason to refuse the application at the nomination stage.

In their view, this leaves low-income applicants who have already spent years in the queue at risk of losing access to housing because of delays on the administrative side rather than any fault of their own. The MPs base their case on Article 9, paragraph (w), of the Constitution, which states that the state works to provide housing for citizens with limited incomes.

Hurdles

They say housing services are meant for Bahrainis with modest means, and that extra hurdles at the nomination stage sit uneasily with that aim. Linking eligibility to income at the time of the original application, they contend, would better match the long waiting times built into the system.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning, in its written reply, said ministerial decisions govern the conditions attached to each housing service, including income thresholds, and that these thresholds are set at BD900 at the time of application and BD 1,200 when the nomination certificate is issued.

Status

It said clause 4 of Article 5 of Decision No. 909 of 2015 was amended to ensure that the income test applies from the date of application through to the nomination stage, so that the applicant’s status is clear over the whole period.

According to the ministry, freezing the income check at the date of application would extend public housing to people who are no longer counted as low income and would therefore disrupt the constitutional concept of ‘limited income’.

It drew a line between longterm housing services and financing services, which it described as immediate; for the latter, applicants must meet the income and other conditions at the time of the request, with no need to join waiting lists.

Support

Despite the ministry’s stance, Parliament’s Public Utilities and Environment Committee, with all attending members in agreement, has recommended backing the proposal.

The committee pointed to the public-interest grounds cited in the explanatory memorandum and urged MPs to approve the motion when it comes before the chamber on Tuesday.