The usual suspects led the conversation on the airwaves last night: Updates on Egypt’s vaccination program (which we cover in detail in this morning’s Covid Watch, above) and more on the topic du jour — amendments to the Real Estate Registry Act.

Registering your property is entirely optional if it’s already connected to basic utility networks, since the Real Estate Registry Act only requires registration as a prerequisite to accessing these utilities, and won’t retroactively take these utilities away, Real Estate Registry head Gamal Yacout explained to Ala Mas’ouleety’s Ahmed Moussa (watch, runtime: 6:12). In a bid to encourage property owners to register their real estate assets, Yacout suggested that properties with their legal affairs in order will automatically appreciate and make any later sale easier and more lucrative (watch, runtime: 3:47).

The 2.5% tax on a real estate’s disposition or quick sale value is “too high” considering current real estate prices, Yacout said, encouraging authorities to consider bringing the rate down to encourage more people to comply. Moussa (very emphatically) agreed (watch, runtime: 4:47). We have more on the levy in the news well, above.

The Personal Status Act will go through public consultations once the House Legislative Committee gets the bill, but the proposed law has yet to be submitted, committee deputy head Yasser Mounir told Yahduth fi Misr’s Sherif Amer (watch, runtime: 3:32).

If you want a preview of what the consultations might look like, search no further than Al Tase’a, where former Information and Decision Support Center head Ashraf Tamam suggested that current custody laws are not logical and that, in the event a mother is not given custody, the father — rather than the child’s grandparents — should be next in line. Tamam also tried to make the case that mothers shouldn’t get custody as a default, pointing to none other than Britney Spears as an example of a mother whose custody rights were reduced by a court (watch, runtime: 8:47).