Is zakah obligatory on land whose intention has not been determined?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question : Honorable Shaykh, she has another question. She says that she has had a piece of land for ten years and does not know whether to build on it or sell it. Is she required to pay zakah on it?
Answer : She does not owe zakah. She does not know whether to sell it, develop it, or keep it to preserve her money? So she does not owe zakah, because the zakah on land is only obligatory if a person is one who trades in land, buying and selling land for profit. As for a person who has land and does not know whether to sell it or not, and he keeps it for a need, there is no similarity in this case.
Answer : She does not owe zakah. She does not know whether to sell it, develop it, or keep it to preserve her money? So she does not owe zakah, because the zakah on land is only obligatory if a person is one who trades in land, buying and selling land for profit. As for a person who has land and does not know whether to sell it or not, and he keeps it for a need, there is no similarity in this case.
Source
ابن العثيمين - فتاوى على الهاتف - فتاوى الصيام — archive.org (47:12)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.