Thanks Queenie for referring to that thread.
It is very important to mention the following:
The will, in Egyptian law, is a legal act, suspended until death, and then, the will's prevalent law of the time of death "not of the time of issuing the will" will be the governing law.
The will cannot exceed 1/3 of the deceased testator's assets and capital as a general rule.
Now let's move to the most important part:
In freehold case, a testator CAN issue a will to a beneficiary, given that this beneficiary is not a normal heir "son or daughter for instance", provided that the will shall not exceed 1/3 of the testator's capital and assets AFTER settling any potential debts.
The will, according to the abovementioned rules, MUST be registered in the notary public in order to be effective, especially against normal heirs. It is also crucial that the legatee "will's beneficiary" shall clearly accept the will AFTER the testator's death. Otherwise it is not effective.
In the case of usufruct: It is totally prohibited by civil law "Article 993" that a usufructuary may issue a will on a property subject to the usufruct system. It is rather complicated to explain this but I will try my best and I hope that concerned readers may concentrate with me here:
In the Egyptian civil law, usufruct is known only as a right to utilize a property for the life period of the usufructuary only. Consequently it was obvious from the legislator to prohibit willn on usufruct, since logically the usufruct will be expired as soon as the usufructuary's life ends.
The prime minister, however, has created a very confusing legal situation by granting foreigners 99 years of usufruct on a property, since the 99 years is normally thought to exceed the average person's life period. However the law did not change, and it is still impossible to issue a will on usufruct since the law is still the same, and this is why I am feeling very sorry that some foreigners have paid a lot of money to lawyers in order to write them wills, when I know that they won't be of any use to them according to the usufruct status, but I would prefer to think that whoever wrote that for them was unaware of article 993 of civil law and has only had good intentions.
The solution:
Despite the complicated stuff above, the solution is quite easy; a usufructuary may add their next of kin / legatee wither as joint purchasers or as next of kin in the body of the usufruct contract. Developers "or let's say most of them" are unaware of these complicated issues!!! Consequently, and in pactical cases, the next of kin of a deceased client in 2006 is now continuing his father's usufruct on a property in Nabq bay. The developer was either a decent person, or an unaware person, but in all cases, it is best to include beneficiaries' ames in the usufruct contrct, since the developer's signature on this contract implies approval to all terms and conditions including this. Subsequently the developer's approval becomes the original deed of the next of kin / beneficiary.
I know that this might've sounded complicated to some people. Is there any area of the above that needs explanation?
All the best,
Zeiad Yehia
Solicitor