Reply to a Query [Sale of properties of absentees at a just price conditioned on observance of the rights of owners and giving back their rights in case of making approaches]

Questioner: Yousuf Sani`i (Prosecutor General)
[In His Most Exalted Name
His Highness Hadrat Ayatullah al-`Uzma al-Imam Khomeini, may his sublime presence endure!
After salutation and greeting, may I beg to notify that a great many of properties ranging from immovable ones such as house, factory, company, garden, farm lands, shops, passages and the like and moveable ones belonging to individuals living outside of the country and so far failing to approach personally for any reason to clarify the status of their property. In accordance with the procedure adopted by the revolutionary prosecutor generals and due to special conditions of the revolution and the general principle that the prosecutor general is the guardian of the properties of absentees and the rights of society, the prosecutor general office has inquired with different organizations Mustad`afan Foundation, Martyrs Foundation, etc.) regarding the properties, an example of which is attached with no. 63/12/13-124503/10. Do you permit in necessary occasions and for protection of the rights of absentees and the rights of Public Treasury in Islamic government these properties be sold to organizations at just price, but with the condition of obliging the buyer to sell at the price of approach time or approach of the owner in specified time or not? «1» Let it not go unsaid that settlement of the question is difficult if not impossible from the perspective of current regulations.
Yousuf Sani`i
Prosecutor General
27/12/1363 AHS
In His Most Exalted Name
In case of preservation of the property of the absentee is based on what has been inquired or is better for him, you are authorized in the said conditional assumption.
Rouhullah al-Mousawi al-Khomeini
9/1/1364 AHS