Whose Job Is It? A Renter's Guide to Home Maintenance Responsibilities in Saudi Arabia's Ejar System

The Question Nobody Answers Before You Sign

You've found the villa in Al Yasmin, or the apartment in Jeddah's Al Salamah, or the compound townhouse in Dammam. The rent is fine, the location works, and the broker hands you a tablet to sign the Ejar contract on the spot. You sign. Three months later, in the middle of a 46°C Riyadh afternoon, the split unit in the majlis stops blowing cold air, and you genuinely do not know whether that's your problem or your landlord's.

This is the single most common maintenance dispute in Saudi rentals, and it isn't ambiguous in law — it's ambiguous in practice, because almost nobody reads the clauses buried inside the standardized Ejar contract before something breaks. This guide walks through exactly who owes what, what the Real Estate General Authority (REGA) requires through Ejar, where the real fights happen, and what to do when a landlord simply doesn't respond. It's written for tenants, but homeowners will find the second half useful too, since the same fault lines — AC, water heaters, pest entry points — are the ones that cost the most to ignore.

What Ejar Is, and Why the SAR 125 Fee Matters

Ejar (إيجار) is the REGA-run electronic platform that has been mandatory for residential leases since 2020 in most of the Kingdom's major cities. Every legally enforceable lease has to be registered on it, for a flat SAR 125 annual fee for residential contracts. This isn't a bureaucratic afterthought — an unregistered lease has real practical consequences. Without Ejar registration, you cannot get utility accounts transferred cleanly into your name, you can't use the contract as an executive instrument if you need to enforce it through the courts, and disputes get harder to resolve because there's no official record of the terms both sides agreed to.

The platform also now escrows security deposits directly, rather than leaving them sitting in a landlord's personal account. Deposits in the Saudi market typically run SAR 1,000–2,000 for a standard apartment or small villa, and Ejar releases them automatically at the end of the tenancy based on a Property Handover Report — a documented condition check at move-out compared against move-in. This detail matters enormously for maintenance disputes, because it means the state of the property when you first get the keys is not just a courtesy walk-through; it is the baseline evidence that determines whether your deposit comes back intact.

What the Landlord Legally Owes You

The Unified Ejar Contract template — the one REGA pushes landlords and brokers to use without added side-conditions, precisely so it remains enforceable — draws a fairly clean line. Landlords carry responsibility for anything that affects the property's basic habitability: structural repairs (cracked walls, roof integrity, foundation issues), major plumbing systems (the building's main water lines, not a dripping tap), and major electrical systems (the property's wiring and distribution board, not a blown light fixture). If the villa's water tank on the roof develops a leak that's damaging the ceiling below, that's a landlord repair. If the main breaker panel is faulty and tripping the whole unit, that's a landlord repair.

In practice, this category also tends to absorb anything caused by original construction defects — poor waterproofing on a roof that lets khareef-adjacent humidity or a rare Riyadh downpour seep through, tiling that was never sealed properly, doors and windows that were fitted with gaps wide enough to let in dust and the occasional gecko. If a defect existed before you moved in and it's a structural or systems issue rather than wear from daily use, the burden sits with the owner.

What Falls on You as the Tenant

Everything the Ejar framework classifies as "minor repairs and routine maintenance" defaults to the tenant unless the contract explicitly states otherwise — and most standard contracts don't override this default. In real terms, this means: replacing light bulbs and batteries, unclogging a sink you clogged, cleaning AC filters, pest control for ordinary ant or cockroach issues (not structural termite damage), fixing a screen door you damaged, and general day-to-day upkeep that any occupant would be expected to handle regardless of who owns the place.

Utility bills are entirely on you as well, and this is worth its own section because of a quirk in how Saudi Arabia handles it.

The Electricity Account: A Rule That Trips Up Almost Every New Tenant

Since 2013, the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) has required that residential electricity accounts be registered directly in the occupant's name rather than the landlord's — a shift originally pushed through by the Electricity and Co-generation Regulatory Authority to stop landlords from being held liable for tenants who skip out on unpaid bills. In practice this means you, not your landlord, need to walk into an SEC office or use the SEC app to transfer the meter subscription into your own name within roughly the first two months of moving in, using your Ejar contract number and Iqama or passport.

Skipping this step causes two problems. First, if the account stays in the previous tenant's or the landlord's name, you have no direct way to dispute charges or request a maintenance visit for a faulty meter. Second — and this catches expats specifically — unpaid SEC balances under your name can hold up a final exit visa when you leave the Kingdom, the same way outstanding STC mobile bills do. Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam residential accounts typically run SAR 200–800 a month depending on villa size and how aggressively the AC runs through July and August, and SEC's tiered tariff structure means costs climb fast past 6,000 kWh in a billing cycle, which a single central AC system in a poorly insulated villa can blow through easily in peak summer.

The Grey Zone: Split Units, Water Heaters, and Where the Fights Happen

The category that generates the most landlord-tenant friction in Saudi rentals isn't structural repair — it's air conditioning, because AC sits awkwardly between "major system" and "routine maintenance" depending on what failed.

A dead compressor, a unit that's simply reached end-of-life, or central AC ductwork failure is almost always argued as the landlord's responsibility, since it affects habitability in a climate where going without cooling for even a day in July is not a minor inconvenience — it's close to a code violation of basic livability. A dirty filter, a unit that needs its annual gas top-up because nobody serviced it, or a remote control with dead batteries is squarely on the tenant.

The market rates make this worth knowing precisely, because "the landlord will handle it eventually" often means you're sitting in a hot room for a week you didn't need to. A single split-unit filter clean in Riyadh runs roughly SAR 89–150 per unit through most on-demand service apps; a Freon/gas refill with leak check is closer to SAR 250–360; a full annual maintenance contract covering up to eight units, with scheduled preventive visits and emergency call-outs included, runs anywhere from about SAR 1,800 a year for a basic plan to SAR 4,000 for a comprehensive one with unlimited emergency visits. If you're a tenant with three or four split units in a villa, it is almost always cheaper to pay roughly SAR 300–500 a year for filter cleaning and minor upkeep yourself than to fight your landlord over every service call — and it puts you in a much stronger position to argue "I've maintained my side of this" if a compressor genuinely fails and you need the landlord to act fast.

Water heaters follow a similar split: a heating element or thermostat failure is typically a landlord repair since it's part of the fixed plumbing/electrical system, but sediment buildup from Saudi Arabia's notoriously hard, high-mineral tap water — especially in Riyadh and the Eastern Province — is something tenants are expected to manage through periodic flushing, or accept the shortened appliance lifespan that comes from skipping it.

The Move-In Inspection Is Your Entire Case Later

Because Saudi tenancy disputes hinge so heavily on documented condition, the walk-through you do on day one is not optional paperwork — it's the single most useful thing you can do to protect your deposit and clarify who's responsible for what later. Walk every room with your phone recording video, narrate what you see, and photograph AC units (note if they're already running rough), water heater age tags if visible, any existing cracks, water stains, or damaged fixtures, and the exact reading on the electricity meter.

Email this documentation to the landlord or agent the same day, and ask for it to be acknowledged in writing, even if it's just a one-line reply. Ejar's Property Handover Report is supposed to formalize this, but many brokers treat it as a checkbox exercise rather than an actual room-by-room record — your own documentation is what holds up if there's a dispute about pre-existing damage six or twelve months later.

When a Landlord Won't Fix What's Legally Theirs

The honest answer is that enforcement in Saudi Arabia's rental market still runs slower than tenants would like, but the tools genuinely exist and are worth using in order.

Start with a written request through Ejar's messaging or by email, giving a specific and reasonable deadline — for something affecting habitability like AC or major plumbing, seven to ten days is standard practice. Keep everything in writing rather than relying on phone calls or WhatsApp voice notes, which are harder to reference later. If there's no response, tenants can raise a formal objection through Ejar's dispute channels, and unresolved cases move to REGA-affiliated rental dispute committees, which can issue binding decisions — Saudi Arabia's judicial system has been actively building out specialized rental dispute resolution specifically because Ejar generates a paper trail that makes these cases faster to adjudicate than informal leases used to be.

For issues that cross into safety territory — a faulty electrical panel, a gas leak, a structural crack that looks serious — the more direct route is reporting through the Ministry of Municipalities and Housing's Balady platform or app, which handles building safety violations, or through 998.gov.sa, the Saudi Civil Defence portal, which has a dedicated National Platform for Violations. These aren't just tenant-vs-landlord tools; a civil defense finding against a property creates external pressure that a private complaint never will, because now the building itself is on record with a government authority, not just with you.

A Realistic Preventive Maintenance Calendar for Tenants

Given how the responsibility lines fall, the tenant tasks worth doing on a schedule — because they're either fully yours or because doing them cheaply now avoids fighting over an expensive failure later — look roughly like this. Clean or replace AC filters monthly through summer (April to October) and every six to eight weeks in cooler months; a filter clean costs less than a delivery meal and adds meaningfully to unit lifespan and your electricity bill. Book a professional AC service and gas check once a year, ideally in March before the real heat starts, since service companies get booked solid by June and prices for emergency call-outs during a July heatwave run noticeably higher than off-season bookings. Flush the water heater or have it flushed every twelve months given the hardness of the water supply. Walk the roof and any external water tank twice a year — once before summer, once before the rare winter rain — checking for cracks or standing water that could become the landlord's structural problem or, more immediately, your ceiling's problem. And keep a running folder, physical or digital, of every maintenance receipt and every written communication with your landlord, because that folder is what your case looks like if a dispute ever reaches a rental committee.

For Homeowners: The Same Fault Lines, Just All Yours

If you own the villa rather than rent it, none of the landlord/tenant split applies, but the underlying risk map doesn't change — AC systems, water heaters, and roof waterproofing are still the three things most likely to cost you an unplanned five-figure SAR repair if ignored. The difference is that as an owner, an annual maintenance contract stops being a nice-to-have and becomes straightforwardly the cheaper option over a five-year horizon, since you're absorbing 100% of failure costs rather than splitting them by category with a landlord. If your property's plumbing is fighting the same hard-water mineral buildup discussed above, it's worth reading the deeper breakdown in our guide on protecting Saudi plumbing from hard water, and if you're weighing whether to replace an aging AC unit versus keep servicing it, our Saudi appliance buying guide covers the SEC tariff math that should factor into that decision.

The Bottom Line

Most Saudi rental maintenance disputes aren't really disagreements about the law — Ejar's standardized contract is fairly clear about who owes what. They're disputes that happen because nobody documented the property's condition on day one, nobody kept the paper trail once something went wrong, and nobody knew that Balady and 998.gov.sa exist as escalation paths beyond just calling the landlord again. Register on Ejar properly, put the electricity account in your name within the first two months, photograph everything at move-in, and treat routine AC and water heater upkeep as cheap insurance rather than an optional expense. The SAR 300 a year you spend maintaining your own split units is a rounding error next to a week without cooling in August while you argue about whose job it was.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is responsible for fixing a broken AC unit in a rented Saudi villa? It depends on the failure. A dead compressor, unit failure from age, or central AC/ductwork problems are typically the landlord's responsibility as part of habitability. Routine issues like a dirty filter, a unit needing its annual gas recharge, or general upkeep are the tenant's responsibility unless the Ejar contract states otherwise.

Is registering my rental contract on Ejar mandatory? Yes, for the lease to be legally enforceable and to serve as an executive instrument if you ever need court enforcement. It also costs a flat SAR 125 per year for residential contracts and is required to cleanly transfer utility accounts into your name.

How do I get the electricity account switched into my own name? You register with the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) directly, either at a service center or through the SEC app, using your Ejar contract number and Iqama or passport, ideally within the first two months of moving in. Leaving it in a previous occupant's or the landlord's name can block your ability to dispute charges and, for expats, cause problems with final exit visa clearance if bills go unpaid.

What can I do if my landlord refuses to make a repair they're legally responsible for? Send a written request with a reasonable deadline (seven to ten days for habitability issues), and escalate through Ejar's dispute channels if there's no response, which can route to REGA-affiliated rental dispute committees. For safety issues like electrical faults or structural cracks, you can also report directly through the Balady platform or Saudi Civil Defence's 998.gov.sa portal.

Sources and further reading

• Ejar — Saudi rental network — registered lease contracts and tenant and landlord obligations.
• Real Estate General Authority (REGA) — regulation of the Saudi rental market.