What is the ruling on the zakah of money from rented apartments paid in installments by the tenant?
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The questioner : May Allah reward you. A questioner asks: Please give us a ruling, may you be rewarded, regarding the zakah of the money that returns to a person from rented apartments, where the amount for a single apartment is not held by the person in one lump sum, but is received in two or three installments?
The Shaykh : All the rents that a person receives little by little, if he spends them as soon as he receives them, there is no zakah on them unless the lunar year has completed on the contract. For example, a man rents out this apartment for ten thousand. The year has passed, and he has received the ten thousand. Here, he pays zakah on it. Why? Because the lunar year has completed on it. And another man rents out an apartment for ten thousand as an advance, meaning the tenant pays it at the time of the contract. So the apartment owner took the ten thousand and then spent it on his family, or on renovating the apartment, or something else. Is there zakah on the ten thousand? No. Why? Because the lunar year has not completed on it. And one of the conditions for the obligation of zakah is that the lunar year must complete on it. As for the apartment itself, there is no zakah on it, because anything prepared for rent has no zakah in it, whether it is real estate, cars, equipment, or anything else, except for jewelry of gold or silver, in which zakah is obligatory in all cases if it reaches the nisab.
The Shaykh : All the rents that a person receives little by little, if he spends them as soon as he receives them, there is no zakah on them unless the lunar year has completed on the contract. For example, a man rents out this apartment for ten thousand. The year has passed, and he has received the ten thousand. Here, he pays zakah on it. Why? Because the lunar year has completed on it. And another man rents out an apartment for ten thousand as an advance, meaning the tenant pays it at the time of the contract. So the apartment owner took the ten thousand and then spent it on his family, or on renovating the apartment, or something else. Is there zakah on the ten thousand? No. Why? Because the lunar year has not completed on it. And one of the conditions for the obligation of zakah is that the lunar year must complete on it. As for the apartment itself, there is no zakah on it, because anything prepared for rent has no zakah in it, whether it is real estate, cars, equipment, or anything else, except for jewelry of gold or silver, in which zakah is obligatory in all cases if it reaches the nisab.