HLP

Scavenging for and recycling rubble appears to have become a booming trade for looting crews in damaged areas, where security forces have restricted access from most residents hoping to return home. This is especially the case in Damascus’ Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp. 

Jandares, located in the rural Afrin area in the northwestern Aleppo governorate countryside and controlled by the opposition-run Syrian Interim Government, was almost destroyed in the February 06 earthquake, which classified the town as a disaster zone.

The earthquake that occurred at dawn on Monday, February 06, caused the total or partial collapse of thousands of buildings in Northwest Syria. The collapses were concentrated in parts of the governorates of Aleppo, Lattakia, and Idlib either controlled by the Syrian government, which controls most of Aleppo and all of the Lattakia governorates; the Syrian Salvation Government affiliated with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which controls most of the Idlib governorate; and the Turkish-backed Syrian Interim Government (SIG), which controls the northern countryside of Aleppo. 

On November 27, 2022, the Syrian President issued Decree No. 308, which permits the Yabroud City Council in Rural Damascus governorate to establish a new industrial zone under the Planning and Urban Development Law No. 23 of 2015.

In the early morning on January 22, a building collapsed in east Aleppo’s Al-Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhood, killing 18 residents. Though the building was newly constructed, it was not properly licensed and lacked structural integrity. 

The Damascus governor announced that buildings in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp that have fallen or are at risk of either partial or total collapse.

The Ministry of Local Administration and Environment issued 14 decrees on December 6, 2022, approving 14 similar decisions by Syria’s 14 governorate councils to increase direct and indirect taxes for 2023. Real estate fees and taxes made up a large portion of these decisions. 

Limitation of disposal is a provisional measure that includes placing a precautionary seizure on someone’s real estate to guarantee any financial rights owed to the state. This measure comes at the request of a public entity, usually the relevant governorate’s finance directorate or the local city council. 

When the Syrian uprising began in 2011, most residents of Al-Zahraa neighbourhood in Homs sided with the regime, many even joining the National Defence Forces, a pro-government militia.

In the General Directorate of Cadastral Affairs, the Central Land Registry Department and the Information Department are responsible for preserving and archiving various real estate documents to organise tasks and prepare for emergencies.

The state-owned General Housing Establishment, which is supposed to provide affordable housing to the population, has once again raised the estimated prices for alternative housing units in the Marota City project. It also requested those eligible for the units to pay 30 percent of this new value now. 

Recent years have seen the majority-Kurdish Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria authorities seize many absentee-owned properties. When those absentees return home and demand their properties back, authorities have offered to lease them, without any compensation for the previous occupancy period. 

Seven people were killed on November 2, 2022, when a four-storey building collapsed in the Rural Damascus governorate city of Al-Hajar Al-Aswad. The victims had been there to extract iron from the damaged building’s columns and roof in order to loot and recycle it. This illicit business--the rubble trade--appears to be attracting new companies as it enjoys military and security protection. 

From the 16th century until the end of Ottoman rule in Syria, the Sharia courts regulated the documentation for proving real estate ownership and entered them into their records. These records are still preserved in Damascus and Aleppo, and to a lesser degree in Homs and Hama, and are still used before the Sharia courts today.

Two temporary housing buildings have been completed in Aleppo’s Masaken Hanano district and will house residents of homes at risk of collapse, the governor of Aleppo told the state-owned Tishreen newspaper in early January. 

Law No. 33 of 2008 on Documenting Ownership of Built Real Estate and Parts of Unbuilt Real Estate was issued to resolve ownership issues related to unlicensed construction and real estate subdivision in informal settlements. Law No. 33 aims to establish and record these properties within the Land Registry according to their reality on the ground, under certain conditions. 

After several years of public auction-run investment in farmlands owned by absentees forcibly displaced from Hama governorate, a foreign NGO has rehabilitated a local irrigation canal, contributing to the legally questionable investment in those lands. 

Since regime forces recaptured the area in 2018, properties in Daraa city’s commercial souk have undergone continuous demolition, despite the fighting there being over.

In October 2022, the Ministry of Tourism warned occupants of traditional handicrafts workshops and stores in Al-Suleimaniyeh Hospice area in Damascus that they must vacate their businesses before the end of 2022 to allow for restoration work on the hospice.

Druze women are often limited in their rights to any real estate bequeathed to them through wills, a tendency that appears to be based on cultural customs and norms passed down from previous generations, rather than religious teachings.