The ruling on the zakah of land owned for sale

Question:
Yes. May Allah reward you and bless you. The questioner from Anizah, Haasin, in the Qassim region, says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah keep you safe. My question is that I have owned two plots of land for two years. This person who owns these lands intended to hold onto them when he bought them, but later he needed to sell them and listed them with a real estate office. However, no one asks about the location of this land, and this location is not desirable to people. No one has come forward to buy it at any price for several years. Is there zakah on it? And how is that done? Is it due for all the years, or after the intention to sell, or just once? May Allah reward you.

Answer:
If he bought the lands with the intention of holding them as property, then there is no zakah on them. But if he intended to sell them afterwards, they become trade goods, like merchandise, so they are trade goods. The strong view is that he should estimate their value at the end of each year and pay zakah on it by giving out one-tenth of their estimated value for each year, as long as the intention to sell continues. However, given the characteristics of the land, desire for it is low and few people come forward for it, but the intention to sell remains, so it is still trade goods. Therefore, he owes no zakah except on what the land is worth each year. If the price drops, he pays zakah on the lower value, and if the price rises, he pays zakah on the higher value, and so on.