From Paper to Blockchain: Smart Contracts and the Future of Real Estate Law in Moroccan Legislation

Résumé

Blockchain technology and self-executing "smart contracts" promise to transform real estate conveyancing by replacing paper deeds, professional intermediaries, and land registration procedures with automated code. Proponents describe this shift through the maxim "Code is Law", suggesting that automated agreements can operate independently of, and eventually displace, national legal systems. This article states that such a claim is legally untenable, and dangerously so when applied to Property rights and the housing market. Building on a functional analysis of smart contract technology and on the mandatory rules that structure property and tenancy relationships, the article argues that a smart contract is an executory instrument, not a source of legal validity: it presupposes, rather than replaces, a legal order capable of determining capacity, consent, and enforceability, and it cannot lawfully override protective statutory rules. The article then evaluates Morocco's legal framework for electronic transactions and land registration, identifies significant regulatory gaps concerning blockchain-based real estate transfers, and proposes a hybrid legal and technical framework capable of reconciling technological innovation with the imperatives of legal certainty and social protection.