Saudi Arabia's Capital Market Authority has issued rules to regulate the offering, registration and management of real- estate investment traded funds units and associated activities in that kingdom. 'Investor-protection' is the regulator's main goal.

A REIT is defined in the rules as a real-estate investment fund that is offered publicly and whose units are traded on the main market, whose primary investment objective is to invest in "constructionally developed" (ready for use) real estate qualified to generate periodic and rental income, and to distribute a prescriptive percentage of the fund's net profit in cash to the unitholders at least once a year. REITs are popular with HNW investors because they represent a good way in which to diversify a portfolio while drawing income.

No person or group of persons whose names are listed on the fund's terms and conditions, upon establishment, indicating their ownership of 5% or more of the fund's units, may dispose of the units to which they subscribed during the first year of trading in the units of the related fund.

Someone who owns 5% or more of the units of the REIT fund is known as a substantial unit-holder. Other unit-holders (who are not the fund manager, his/its affiliate or someone on the fund's board of directors) are called public unit-holders. The rules dictate the disclosure of significant unitholders' dealings on the exchange.

The fund manager must appoint one or more custodians with a written contract. They must be 'authorised persons' (i.e. regulated entities - a phrase that Saudi Arabia has borrowed from the UK). The appointed custodian must not be the fund manager or a fund sub-manager of the relevant fund, or an affiliate of the same. The custodian must segregate each REIT's assets from his/its own assets and from those of his/its other clients, while keeping all necessary records. He/it must identify the assets separately, registering the  securities and other assets of the relevant investment fund in his/its name, registering the real-estate assets of the fund in the name of his/its affiliate, while the assets of the REIT are owned collectively by the fund's unitholders.