The state, as the tangible embodiment of collective will to secure the public good, gives its existential philosophy meaning when it can guarantee political unity—the ultimate public trust—through the establishment of order and security across various social domains, particularly in the marketplace. This role, which from the perspective of political philosophy forms the basis of the state’s legitimacy, was also highly anticipated in the realm of real estate transactions in Iran. However, over the past century, the state has failed to establish the necessary legal order and security in this area, thus challenging its efficiency in one of the most fundamental aspects of social life.
The issue of the simultaneous legitimacy of private and official documents within Iran’s transaction law, arising from the failure to precisely distinguish the legal status and value of these two types of instruments and the state's ambivalent stance—marked by alternating patterns of devaluation and validation of private documents in real estate transactions over nearly one hundred years—has led to numerous problems in the registry system. The outcome of this has been widespread judicial disputes and market instability. Meanwhile, the few legislative efforts made by the state, intended to restore order and reform the registration system, were repeatedly neutralized and rendered ineffective when confronted by expedient or urgent political pressures from active factions within the political arena. This prolonged period of interplay between various influential social forces meant that the market never experienced complete assurance or verification of security in real estate transactions.
The "crisis," however, was a reality that the regulatory state seriously faced in terms of its reluctance to make a "decisive decision" to regulate real estate transactions. The enactment of the law mandating the official registration of real estate transactions was a belated yet critical decision aimed at unifying the status, position, and credibility of official documents in the economic exchanges of the public and ultimately fulfilling the state’s due obligations over the past century.