Hama Starts Processing Complaints over Assad-Era IDP Farmland Auctions

On June 23, the General Secretariat of Hama Governorate issued a circular announcing it would start receiving complaints and requests to terminate investment in displaced persons’ vacant farmlands. These lands had been offered for investment via public auctions between 2021 and 2024.

Currently, the Secretariat is accepting complaints, without specifying a time limit, via the general diwan, or “registry”, where they are recorded and referred to the Agricultural Investment File Committee in the legal department. There, they will undergo formal and legal review, the Hama governorate’s media office explained.

The complainant must be the owner of the farmland or their official representative by virtue of a court referral, with legal authorisation if the applicant’s name is not mentioned in the investment contract. The committee’s role is limited to studying complaints and locating the requested investment contracts. Thus, the committee is not a judicial body authorised to resolve disputes or determine compensation.

The complainant is not required to file a lawsuit, but landowners retain the right to sue investors who signed contracts with the official authority at the time to seek compensation for crops and damages. This is based on the invalidity of the investment contracts due to their issuance by an authority lacking a legal mandate to dispose of the property, under the principle that “what is built on falsehood is false,” according to the governorate’s media office.

As for lands invested outside of auctions, these fall outside the committee’s jurisdiction, and their resolution remains through the competent courts to establish rights through legal means.

How did the auctions take place?

In 2020, the Assad regime adopted an organised policy of investing in lands belonging to absentees and forcibly displaced persons through public auctions. The process began with “spatial technical committees” tasked with surveying and inventorying, working in coordination with security agencies. These committees identified lands owned by people living outside the regime’s areas of control, particularly high-value pistachio and olive groves, and required landowners residing in regime-controlled areas to prove their ownership by presenting title deeds in order to exclude their lands from auctions.

These auctions were announced by the General Secretariat of Hama Governorate, as well as in Idlib and Aleppo. Lands were divided into two categories: cultivated lands and barren lands.

The investment mechanism required applicants to submit investment requests at the one-stop shop in the governorate, along with a technical file, a tax clearance certificate, and security approval. The bidding price was set according to land type, and investors were required to pay an initial deposit per hectare, followed by a final deposit equal to 10 percent of the winning bid’s value. Penalties, including precautionary seizures, were imposed on those who failed to pay the deposits.

In 2022, the Council of Ministers under Assad issued Resolution No. 12011, based on the Ministry of Agriculture’s Letter No. 291. The resolution regulated the investment of vacant agricultural lands and specified the procedures for announcements and applications, relying on the Personal Status Law No. 59 of 1953 to determine heirs, even if the original owner was still alive.

In terms of eligible persons, lands could be invested by first-degree relatives of absentees (father, mother, spouse, children) upon presenting proof of kinship and obtaining security approval. Second- and third-degree relatives could invest through mutual agreement, with a 10 percent deduction from the final bid value. This led to family disputes, especially over jointly owned lands, and contributed to deepening social divisions.

Later, all public auctions were placed under Law No. 51 of 2004, allowing for financial benefits to the state treasury. In early 2024, the Hama governor announced that revenue from a single season reached SYP 32 billion, of which SYP 22 billion were deposited into the state treasury.

Why is the current complaints process important?

According to the Hama Governorate’s media office, the documentation of contracts and evidence through the general diwan records and the Agricultural Investment File Committee, and the delivery of original or certified copies of contracts to complainants, provides them with a legal entry point for any subsequent litigation. Limiting the committee’s jurisdiction to official auction contracts within the governorate also offers procedural clarity, while cases of investment outside auctions are referred directly to the competent courts.

The governorate’s announcement established clear legal standing by requiring a judicial referral from the public prosecutor in Hama and an official power of attorney or legal authorisation if the names on the submitted documents differ from those in the original contract. This ensures verification of identity and identifies the rightful party with interest.

Additionally, confirming the invalidity of the legal basis of the old contracts paves the way for compensation claims for crops and damages against investors who signed contracts at the time, pending the final determination of liability by the judiciary.

These measures represent an initial administrative step to return files to their legal framework, but they remain insufficient unless followed by two parallel courses:

• Judicial course: to declare the nullity of unlawful contracts, determine responsibilities, and provide redress, particularly in cases outside the scope of official auctions and beyond the committee’s jurisdiction.
• Regulatory course: to review the impact of public auctions involving others’ property, safeguard ownership rights, and prevent the reintroduction of similar mechanisms under different names or opaque investment models.

The circular issued on June 23 constitutes a necessary procedural step to regulate auction files that represent systematic violations of the ownership rights of displaced persons. However, the success of the current process depends on fulfilling three conditions: precise administrative control over documents and contracts, effective judicial empowerment for redress and accountability, and institutional reform to prevent absentees’ lands from becoming a quick source of revenue at the expense of rights.