Suspended Ownership in Suweida: From Obstructed Estate Inheritance Inventories to Frozen Property Transactions

On 20 May 2026, the Ministry of Justice of the Transitional Administration issued Decision No. 1475, freezing most judicial, real estate and notarisation transactions in Suweida Governorate on the basis of what it described as the “current situation” and the “exceptional circumstances” in the governorate. The ministry suspended the hearing of property sale cases, prohibited the issuance of general and specific powers of attorney relating to the sale of real estate and vehicles, and froze enforcement proceedings, ownership transfer transactions, compulsory sales and any act creating real property rights. In doing so, the Ministry of Justice extended the effects of Suweida’s political and security crisis into the property sphere, suspending residents’ ability to sell their properties, transfer ownership or manage existing legal disputes concerning them. 

The decision was preceded by a state of disruption imposed by government forces and affiliated groups following the July 2025 massacre. The attack on Suweida, the subsequent institutional breakdown, and the disruption of roads and administrative transactions effectively halted essential judicial and administrative processes in the governorate. In this context, victims’ families encountered another form of obstruction at the relevant Civil Affairs departments. According to local testimonies collected by Green Tabu, these departments required some families to amend the cause of death recorded in medical reports or change the date of death as a condition for registering the death in the Civil Registry. This obstructed amendments to civil registration records and family registers and subsequently delayed the issuance of the documents required to obtain an estate inheritance inventory document (EIID), preventing heirs from transferring ownership, selling property, investing in agricultural land or settling their legal affairs. 

These events show that the Ministry of Justice’s decision is only one part of the institutional restrictions on the exercise of property rights in Suweida. The Ministry of Justice, Civil Affairs departments, courts, enforcement departments, notaries and Cadastral Affairs offices now form an interconnected administrative and judicial chain that restricts property transactions through several channels. This chain begins with the registration of a death and the amendment of civil registration records and extends to estate inheritance inventories, powers of attorney, property sale cases, enforcement proceedings, ownership transfers and real property rights. 

In this context, the Civil Registry, the courts and real estate documentation become tools for suspending the exercise of property rights in Suweida. This directly affects property sales, estate inheritance inventories, the management of expatriates’ property, the investment of agricultural land and the stability of the local property market. A clear gap emerges between the Ministry of Justice’s stated justification of protecting rights and preventing the exploitation of current circumstances, and the practical reality in which the freeze becomes an additional cause of suspended property transactions and increased economic and legal vulnerability among residents. 

From Civil Registration to Estate Inheritance Inventories 

One link in the chain obstructing property transactions in Suweida begins at the Civil Registry, before a case reaches the courts or the Land Registry. Since the July 2025 massacre, victims’ families have encountered obstacles when attempting to register the deaths of relatives or amend family civil registration records. These obstacles arose amid widespread violence documented by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic in its report of 27 March 2026, which estimated that at least 1,700 people had been killed and nearly 200,000 displaced. This prompted families to visit Civil Affairs departments in Damascus despite the risks of travelling between Suweida and the capital, the high cost of transport and the difficulty of completing transactions outside the governorate. 

In Damascus, according to local testimonies collected by Green Tabu, Civil Affairs departments made death registration conditional on altering fundamental information concerning the circumstances in which the victims were killed. These departments required some families to amend the cause of death recorded in medical reports or change the date of death to one outside the final two-thirds of July before registering the death in the Civil Registry. This condition left families with 2 harsh choices: accept the alteration of information concerning the circumstances in which their relatives were killed, or leave the death unregistered and face the resulting legal obstruction. 

The effect of this condition extends beyond the civil document itself. Registering a death is the necessary first step towards amending the civil registration record and family register, and then obtaining the documents required by the competent court to issue an EIID. When Civil Affairs departments refuse to register a death unless its cause or date is altered, they delay the administrative transaction and break the legal chain that heirs must follow to establish their status as heirs and deal with the deceased person’s property. 

An EIID is particularly important when victims’ families need to dispose of property to secure a livelihood, finance their departure or settle their financial affairs. Without formal confirmation of the death and amendment of the civil registration record and family register, heirs cannot complete the documentation required to establish their legal status as heirs. This suspends any subsequent sale or transfer of the property, as well as its use as a financial asset on which the family can rely amid the deterioration in living conditions. 

The effects of this obstruction also extend to agricultural land. In a governorate where much of the population relies on land as a productive resource and a form of family savings, the inability to obtain an EIID freezes the capacity to invest in the land, settle existing disputes or regulate relations between co-owners. As agricultural seasons approach, delays in establishing the heirs’ legal status translate into direct production losses, particularly where the land requires a prompt decision concerning cultivation, leasing or management. 

This chain makes civil registration the starting point for the suspension of property rights. A family unable to register the death of one of its members cannot amend its family register; without that amendment, it cannot obtain an EIID; and without an EIID, it remains unable to transfer ownership, sell or administer the property or land in the heirs’ names. 

The obstruction takes the form of an institutional process linking official recognition of a death to the alteration of its details, and then linking the heirs’ right to deal with their property to their acceptance of that alteration. Where families refuse to change the cause or date of death, the property remains effectively frozen because the heirs lack access to the complete legal process allowing them to sell, transfer or invest in it. The Civil Registry thus becomes the first link restricting property transactions in Suweida. 

Decision No. 1475: From Protecting Property Rights to Suspending Their Exercise 

On 20 May 2026, the Ministry of Justice of the Transitional Administration issued Decision No. 1475, suspending most judicial and notarisation procedures connected to property transactions in Suweida. In its preamble, the decision cited the governorate’s “current situation” and “exceptional circumstances”, presenting the freeze as a temporary measure intended to “safeguard citizens’ rights” and “prevent the exploitation of current circumstances through any legal proceedings or transactions that may affect property rights and other rights”. 

Procedurally, the ministry suspended the hearing before all Suweida courts of property sale cases, civil and criminal proceedings involving people actually residing outside the governorate, and cases to which public bodies are parties. It also prohibited the issuance of general and specific powers of attorney relating to the sale of real estate and vehicles, whether issued in Syria or abroad and whether revocable or irrevocable. This prohibition affects one of the most important legal tools used by residents and expatriates to manage their property, as notarised powers of attorney provide a practical means of completing sales, administering property or concluding settlements when the principal is absent, travelling or unable to appear in person. 

The decision also extended to enforcement departments, ownership transfer transactions, compulsory sales and any act creating real property rights. The Ministry of Justice therefore suspended not only litigation but also the final legal effects produced by property judgments and proceedings. Judicial sales, the enforcement of judgments, ownership transfers and the creation of real property rights all require a connected sequence of procedures involving the courts, enforcement departments, notaries and Cadastral Affairs offices. When this chain is frozen, the right remains valid on paper while the ability to turn it into an enforceable legal act is suspended. 

The decision allowed new claims to be filed and registered solely so that precautionary notices could be entered on the relevant Land Records, thereby recording the date of the claim and preserving priority; it prohibited judgments on the merits. This exception gives an affected party a limited ability to protect their legal position formally, but does not provide an effective route for selling property, transferring ownership, enforcing a judgment or resolving a dispute. The Ministry of Justice therefore separates the theoretical preservation of a right from its practical exercise, allowing the entry of a precautionary notice that records the unresolved dispute while withholding the process that would resolve it. 

The decision follows an earlier circular issued by the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme Judicial Council in early September 2025. That circular retroactively suspended legal and procedural deadlines from 13 July 2025 because force majeure had disrupted public services and transport in the governorate. At the time, the Ministry of Justice treated the suspension of deadlines as a response to the force majeure situation arising from the attack on Suweida. Decision No. 1475, however, extended the suspension beyond time limits and procedural deadlines to the substance of property, judicial and notarisation transactions, broadening the disruption to include sales, powers of attorney, enforcement and ownership transfers. 

The Ministry of Justice presents the decision as a means of protecting property from exploitation and manipulation under exceptional circumstances. Its broad formulation, however, turns protection itself into a tool for suspending the exercise of property rights. Families needing to sell property, owners wishing to transfer ownership, expatriates relying on notarised powers of attorney, creditors awaiting the enforcement of judgments, and heirs seeking to give effect to an EIID all find themselves facing closed or deferred legal channels. Without a clear time limit for the freeze or exceptions for urgent cases, the temporary measure becomes an open-ended restriction on property transactions in the governorate. 

In this sense, the decision operates as a legal lock imposed on top of the obstruction of civil registration and the administrative difficulties faced by victims’ families. While the Civil Registry may suspend the beginning of the legal process in some cases by obstructing the registration of deaths and the issuance of EIIDs, Decision No. 1475 suspends the end of the process by freezing sales, enforcement and ownership transfers. The two processes form a closed circle, beginning with a family’s inability to establish its legal status and ending with its inability to deal with the property even where that status has been established or could be proven. 

The decision is particularly dangerous because it simultaneously affects interconnected legal sectors: the courts, notaries, enforcement departments, Cadastral Affairs offices, powers of attorney and real property rights. Instead of limiting intervention to cases in which a risk of exploitation or manipulation has been established, the Ministry of Justice chose a general freeze that turns the exception into the rule. In a governorate emerging from a large-scale massacre and experiencing internal displacement and institutional disruption, the freeze has a compounding effect because it deprives residents of the legal tools they need to manage their property. 

Practical Consequences: A Suspended Market and Deferred Disputes 

The freeze on property and notarisation transactions strikes at an essential part of Suweida’s daily economic cycle. For many families, real estate, land and vehicles function as fixed assets, family savings and sources of finance for day-to-day living expenses, displacement, home repairs, debt repayment or travel. When the Ministry of Justice closes the routes for sales, ownership transfers, powers of attorney and enforcement, it prevents residents from converting these assets into usable resources amid intense economic and security pressures.

The impact is compounded in a governorate emerging from waves of widespread violence affecting residents, homes, commercial premises and land. The July 2025 massacre left an extremely fragile property situation, with homes that had been looted or burnt, villages that were destroyed or emptied of their residents, displaced families, absent owners, and heirs needing to establish their legal status. In this context, a property transaction becomes a means of reorganising daily life rather than merely a sale or ownership-transfer procedure. Every delay in a sale, power of attorney, or enforcement process prolongs families’ inability to manage their losses or rebuild their livelihoods.

The Ministry of Justice’s decision directly affects expatriates and absent owners. The prohibition on issuing general and specific powers of attorney relating to the sale of real estate and vehicles blocks the legal route most commonly used by people living outside the governorate or outside Syria to manage their assets. Such people usually rely on notarised powers of attorney to sell a property, settle matters concerning an ownership share, transfer ownership or manage a dispute with co-owners. With this mechanism frozen, expatriates lose the ability to deal with their property even when it is formally registered and even when the need to sell or manage it is urgent.

The freeze also opens the way for a growing accumulation of deferred disputes. Cases that courts do not hear, judgments that enforcement departments do not enforce, powers of attorney that notaries do not issue, and registrations that do not result in ownership transfers all leave financial and family disputes in an open-ended state of suspension. As this waiting period continues, disputes may escalate between heirs, co-owners, sellers and buyers, and creditors and debtors, particularly where the property is the family’s only available financial asset.

With official channels closed, the risk grows that some residents will resort to solutions outside formal institutions. The need to sell, reach a settlement or obtain liquidity may lead people to conclude customary contracts outside the courts, formalise agreements before local notables or carry out financial settlements without official registration. These practices may provide the parties with a temporary solution, but they create more complicated future disputes because an unregistered contract remains vulnerable to denial, conflicting claims or rights, or legal challenge when the courts and Cadastral Affairs offices resume their work. 

This situation also increases the risk of self-help enforcement of rights. The longer the courts and enforcement procedures remain suspended, the more people may rely on local customs, balances of power, armed groups or notables to resolve disputes over property, debts and sales. This may shift property disputes from the courtroom into the community sphere by turning a disagreement over property, an inheritance share or a debt into an open social conflict. 

The result is that ownership in Suweida remains formally recognised but effectively frozen. A rights holder may retain their name, share or claim but remains unable to sell, transfer ownership, enforce a judgment, grant a power of attorney or resolve the dispute. With no clear time limit for the decision, deferred transactions become a daily source of pressure on families, the market, expatriates, heirs and farmers. The freeze therefore suspends not only activity within the Land Registry but also part of residents’ ability to recover from the July 2025 massacre.