Kuwait Times, Tuesday, May 09, 2023 | Shawwal 19, 1444
Kuwaitis building fourth floor for their newlywed children to avoid high rents
Kuwait :
As housing prices continue to rise, it is becoming
increasingly difficult for young couples to afford renting their own apartments.
In Kuwait, many Kuwaiti newlyweds find themselves struggling to pay high rentals
while waiting to receive their government houses, which often leads to financial
stress. So Kuwaiti families have adopted a potential solution that can alleviate
this problem, which is building an extra floor in the parents’ house for newly
married couples. Such an arrangement provides benefits for both the newlyweds
and their parents.
By living in the same household with their parents, the couple can receive
practical and emotional support and lower living costs, since parents usually
let the couples live for free or pay nominal rent. Despite the multiple benefits
of this move for Kuwaiti families, some people discourage this, especially when
houses exceed three floors.
Ayoub Al-Saffar, a real estate consultant said: “This phenomenon is spreading
among Kuwaitis due to the housing crisis, which has forced people to build a
fourth floor on top of their private houses for their newly married children to
live near them and prevent paying high rent. This step is related to two main
factors: The high cost of housing and rental apartments and directly related to
the slow process of distributing government houses to Kuwaiti couples, which
leaves newlywed Kuwaitis with no choice but to either find an apartment on rent
or build an extra floor and live in with their parents.”
Building an extra floor is an efficient solution for Kuwaitis when compared to
renting an apartment. Additionally, parents’ houses are often located in
neighborhoods the couples are familiar and more comfortable with. However,
Saffar discourages exceeding three floors, as he said that it affects the
infrastructure of the area and its services. “Each area was designed to
accommodate a population density of only 210 percent, while the situation has
exceeded 350 percent. We have only seen paper distributions lately. Houses in
Mutlaa entered the implementation stage only a short while ago, while in South
Saad Al-Abdullah, they are still on paper,” he added.
Building an extra floor for newly married couples in their parents’ house can be
an attractive solution, but as with any major decision, it is important to
carefully consider the legal and financial implications before proceeding. The
Municipal Council has approved requests to allow Kuwaitis to build a fourth
floor in their private houses, but based on certain regulations. Saffar said as
long as building a fourth floor is not officially legalized in Kuwait,
homeowners cannot benefit from the extra value that is supposed to be added to
the house, because it cannot be sold, which makes the expenses and the risk
worthless for many people.