Researcher Hala Masoud, student at AAUP Faculty of Graduate Studies, defended her thesis in Commercial Law entitled: “Mortgage as Bank Guaranty in Palestinian Legislation”.

In her thesis, researcher discussed mortgage in Palestine as the most important guaranty, stressing that with the rise of housing prices and individuals’ incapability to provide enough money to buy one, banks are providing it, by mortgaging a property the client owns as a guarantee for the bank’s right so that the customer repays the loan.

Pointing that mortgage in Palestine is a special case since most of the West Bank’s lands are not subject to settlement, creating a problem for its mortgaging possibility. As for lands that are subject to settlement they mostly don’t have problems. In addition there’s the problem of C Areas under the Israeli occupation authorities which prevents registering it or makes the process very complicated or impossible, not to mention the new land registering problem. She also showed that needed mortgage for bank credit, do not apply except on officially registered real estate at the land department (Tabu), while unregistered real estate can’t be mortgaged or be a loan’s guarantee, this is already an obstacle to develop mortgage market in Palestine since the majority of the West Bank lands 66% aren’t registered.

By the end, the committee of Thesis Supervisor and Head of committee Dr. Yousef Shandi, Internal Examiner from AAUP Dr. Bashar Daraghmeh and External Examiner from Birzeit University Dr. Mahmoud Dowdeen decided to give Hala Masoud a Master Degree.