Calls to Subdivide Properties in Upscale District of Damascus

According to pro-government media reports, during a regular meeting of the Damascus Governorate Council in mid-January 2024, members called for the subdivision and correction of descriptions for the Adawi and Eastern Tijara areas and the issuance of ownership deeds for their properties.

Nouri Salman, the director of the Provisional Land Register at the Damascus Directorate of Cadastral Affairs, explained to the semi-official Al-Watan newspaper that the subdivision and correction of descriptions for these properties are within the jurisdiction of the Damascus Directorate of Cadastral Affairs and the Damascus governorate. He added that to subdivide and correct the descriptions of these properties, a request must be submitted to the Damascus governorate to open a technical mandate for the horizontal subdivision of the area, followed by its vertical subdivision, the so-called “Building subdivision”, after which the deeds can be transferred from the Provisional Land Register to the Land Register in the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs.

The technical mandate is a process of technical inspection of a property to determine its boundaries on the ground, carried out by a committee from the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs, with a representative from the administrative unit to which the property belongs. Opening a technical mandate means submitting a request to the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs in the concerned governorate to schedule a date for the technical inspection of the property.

The correction of descriptions is an administrative transaction conducted by the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs upon request from the property owner. The process aims to match the property descriptions recorded in its Land Record with its actual condition. For example, a property may be recorded as agricultural land while it is actually a multi-storey building.

Meanwhile, the subdivision of a property is a technical transaction conducted by the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs based on a request from the property owners. The aim is to divide the property into separate and independent properties. The property subdivision process is conducted as if the property were commonly owned.

Horizontal division involves:

• Splitting the land into plots prepared for construction.
• Assigning each a number.
• Entering them into the Provisional Land Register.

Subsequently, the owner of one of these plots can obtain a construction permit for a building with multiple floors and residences. After the building’s completion and the sale of these homes, the plot can be vertically subdivided, creating a new land record for each apartment within the building as an independent property. These real estate occurrences are then transferred from the Provisional Land Register to the Permanent Land Register.

The Eastern Tijara and Adawi areas in Damascus are an urban extension, partly informal, located east of Damascus city. Al-Tijara and Al-Adawi are considered upscale neighbourhoods in Damascus, known for their modern construction, spacious apartments, high prices, green spaces, parks, and public amenities. The extension of the area began in the 1950s on agricultural lands known as Al-Adawi orchards.

In Eastern Tijara and Adawi, there are three types of properties: first, licensed buildings on zoned land with ownership deeds, subdivided and registered in the Land Registry, each residence having an independent land record, allowing relatively easy sale and purchase unless there are restraints on disposal against it. Most of these buildings were constructed in the 1950s and 1960s.

Second, particularly in the western part of the Eastern Tijara neighbourhood, are buildings licensed and constructed by housing cooperatives on zoned land. Most are subdivided horizontally, not vertically. These buildings were erected during the 1970s and 1980s. Reasons preventing the vertical subdivision of properties include the death of one of the owners and placing restraints on disposal mark on the entire original property until the heirs agree on dividing their shares or unresolved building violations. In such cases, the real estate occurrences are registered in the Provisional Land Legister using ownership documents issued by the Directorate of Housing Cooperation in the Ministry of Public Works and Housing to establish ownership and complete sale and purchase transactions. However, these are not transferred to the Land Registry because the property has not been subdivided vertically.

Thirdly, there are unlicensed buildings erected on zoned land more than 40 years ago in the far eastern part of the area. Still, they have not been horizontally subdivided and, therefore, not vertically subdivided either. These buildings were constructed in the 1980s, marked by construction chaos in Damascus, when landowners built on their plots before subdividing them horizontally into building-ready plots, yet adhered to the urban planning and building regulations, aiming for future licensing. In the area, there are multiple cases where a single piece of land has several buildings on it. However, it still remains as one property not subdivided into construction-ready plots. Therefore, all these buildings and the residences within them are still owned in common by their owners, with one land record. The process of horizontal subdivision has been hindered over time, especially with multiple building violations, generations of heirs, and restraints on disposal. Many of these homeowners have no proof of ownership other than court judgments affirming their purchase contracts.

According to The Syria Report’s local correspondent, there are hundreds of affected individuals in the second and third types of buildings, where these homeowners and residents cannot secure loans with their properties as collateral, obtain restoration permits, or sell them officially. The market value of these residences is much lower than their counterparts in the same area. Initiating a technical assignment process for description correction and subdivision is not as straightforward as local authorities claim. The Directorate of Cadastral Affairs requires all co-owners of a property to apply for description correction and subdivision, a hard task due to the presence of hundreds of heirs and their legal representatives, not to mention those who have emigrated or are absent.