PART I:  Construction of Residential House

1. General Information

·        Any Ethiopian or foreign national of Ethiopian origin who has got Identity Card of Ethiopian origin and is above the age of 18 can build a house in any part of the country securing land from a municipality of a regional state as per the rules of the state.

·        No restriction is imposed on anyone as long as he / she has the financial capacity to build a house. If individuals are interested they can also participate in a bidding process to get the land. The price of plot of land will be determined through bidding.

·        Interested individuals are strongly advised to organize themselves and form a cooperative (association) for Housing construction. The association s hould get recognition from the concerned authority in the municipality or regional state.

• Applicants can build (condominium) apartment particularly in Addis Ababa.

      In the Regional states, applicants can get land to build villas.

• In Addis Ababa, applicants can get land as follows:

·        Applicants should pay 250 birr for registration to be able to participate in drawing lot. They will also be requested to deposit the following sum of money in blocked account depending on the size of the land requested:

·        when a plot of land is given to an applicant, he/she should pay 20% of the land price as down payment, the remaining will be paid within 20 years. Two years grace will be given.

2. To form an Association:

·         individuals can form a Housing association to facilitate acquisition of land and construction.

·        Should be willing to construct the house together with other members and be ready to contribute financial or other obligations as required by the Association.   

·        The Housing Association can have 10 member (minimum).

·        The Association should have a constitution endorsed by members of Executive and Supervisory Committee of the Association. (A sample of a Constitution can be obtained from the Honorary Consulate Offices or our Embassy.)

·        Each member should appoint his legal representative in Ethiopia. The legal  representatives of the members will be responsible for securing land, construction and/or supervising the construction.

·        Forms that should be used for the application purposes are available at the Honorary Consulate Offices of Ethiopia. The Embassy can also make them available to any interested group upon request.

3 .Application Procedures:   

The chairman or a representative appointed by the Association should submit the following documents to the Honorary Consulate Office for authentication in Melbourne (for those in Australia and New Zealand), in Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) or those in China to the Ethiopian Embassy in Beijing.

Documents that should be presented to the Embassy:

1.      An application letter,

2.      Three certified copies of the Constitution of the House Construction cooperative signed on each page by the members of the Executive and Supervisory Committee.

Name list of the founding members with their contract address and signature should also be attached.

3.      Certified authorization document of the appointment of individual representative in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) by each member of the cooperative.

4.      Two original copies of certified Minutes of the Meeting which indicate that the founding members: