Explained: The Directorate of Cadastral Affairs in Suweida

After the attacks by forces aligned with the Transitional Administration against Suweida in July, displaced Druze residents from villages in the western and northern countryside grew increasingly anxious about the fate of their homes and agricultural lands. Around 150,000 people fled hastily from those villages to Suweida city and its southern and eastern countryside within hours of the attack, fearing house-to-house field executions. Most of the displaced took very few of their belongings with them. The majority left their property documents behind in homes that were later looted and burned by government and tribal forces. As a result, the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs in Suweida governorate has become the only remaining reference for proving their rights to housing, land, and property ownership.

However, the directorate has not taken additional measures to protect its records due to the complex circumstances following the fall of the Assad regime at the end of 2024. The directorate’s premises in Suweida city remain rented buildings under old, automatically renewed contracts. After the fall of the regime, the landlords who had leased properties to the directorate sought to reclaim them. The directorate negotiated with them to increase the rent and compensate them according to new market rates, but these agreements did not cover all premises. Consequently, employees were forced to completely vacate one of the buildings, and were only allowed to access the main headquarters one day per week to extract property records required by embassies for travel purposes. This rented main office is unfit for storing sensitive documents, which are exposed to humidity, dust, and high temperatures on open metal shelves – making any electrical fault or water leak a direct threat to the governorate’s archives.

Meanwhile, the directorate owns an unfinished new building that it regards as the ideal solution for relocating its archives and offices, but it has been awaiting completion for more than 15 years. The building was constructed on land purchased by the General Directorate of Cadastral Affairs from the Suweida City Council, with work beginning in 2004 before coming to a complete halt in 2009. It consists of eleven floors – three underground levels designated for warehouses and parking, and eight upper floors containing offices and halls for the court, registry, and automation – covering a total area of approximately 8,000 square metres. Despite its structural readiness, the annex to the contract covering finishing and furnishing works has still not been approved, leaving the building closed and unused.

The Directorate of Cadastral Affairs in Suweida is the official authority responsible for creating and maintaining property ownership data, based on the Land Registry Law No. 188 of 1926 and Decision No. 186 of 1926, which established the system of land demarcation and registration. Administratively, it reports to the General Directorate of Real Estate Affairs in Damascus, which supervises all provincial branches, giving the official documents issued by them uniform legal validity across the country.

The governorate includes three administrative areas distributed among its three cities: Suweida, Salkhad, and Shahba. These administrative areas encompass 348 cadastral zones: 147 within the Suweida jurisdiction, 109 under Shahba, and 92 under Salkhad. The Directorate of Cadastral Affairs in the governorate oversees a Land Registry Office in Suweida city and Cadastral Affairs Offices in both Shahba and Salkhad. Each of these cities also has its own Cadastral Survey Department.

In recent years, the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs in Suweidaa has been digitising its paper archive as part of a digitisation project. Previously, documents were stored in paper archives or on microfilm reels, with copies sent to Damascus. Today, the Directorate uses digital systems and scanners to store records on separate servers, with backup copies kept in Damascus and at the Central Bank, reducing the risk of data loss. The Suweida administrative area has finished digitising most of its property records and new contracts, while Shahba and Salkhad are behind due to staff shortages and frequent power outages. Meanwhile, all cadastral maps have been digitised, and work is underway to link them electronically to the Land Registry offices.

The areas where the delimitation and census processes have been completed are considered relatively secure, as multiple copies of their data exist in different locations and their digitisation is nearly complete. However, the areas that have not yet undergone these procedures are more vulnerable to loss of property rights during times of war and displacement, as they lack comprehensive reference records, and some property owners possess only ownership deeds without accompanying maps.

Out of the 348 cadastral zones in the governorate, 80 have not yet undergone land demarcation and registration. Among these 80 zones,21 belong to around 30 villages affected by the July attack and still under the control of the Transitional Administration’s forces. Real estate experts advise residents of these villages to complete title deed (tabu) transactions and attach a site plan issued by a certified engineer identifying the property’s location.

The rightful owner must first submit to the neighborhood-level representative (mukhtar) a document known as ailm wa khabar (statement of information), which lists their name, the names of neighbouring property owners, and a description of the property. After the mukhtar’s endorsement, approvals must be obtained from the district administration, the municipality, the religious endowments directorate, and the forestry department. The application is then submitted to the Cadastral Survey Department within the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs, which assigns a specialist to confirm that the property lies outside the demarcated and registered zones. Afterward, the request is referred to the Head of the Real Estate Documentation Office, who forwards it to the Magistrate’s Court, where a date is set for an on-site inspection. The court then issues a registration decision, which is announced in the municipality hall before being sent to the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs for formal entry into the tabu records.