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Security Approval Requirements Hinder Real Estate Operations for Kurds in Hassakeh

23-01-2024/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

To conduct any real estate transaction in the border area of Hassakeh Governorate under de facto control of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), an administrative process called “legal licensing” must be carried out that requires prior security approval. This process and its relevant security approval can only be obtained through the security services of the Syrian regime.

Though the AANES has controlled the Hassakeh governorate since 2014 and established directorates, institutions and courts, it has not established its own Directorate of Cadastral Affairs due to the lack of available Land registries. Therefore, the documentation of real estate occurrences in Hassakeh remains limited to real estate documentation offices under the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs in the Ministry of Local Administration of the Damascus government and the relevant courts under the Ministry of Justice.

The headquarters of these courts and real estate documentation offices are located in the “security squares” controlled by the regime’s forces in the cities of Hassakeh, Qamishli and Al-Malikiah. These courts and offices require those wishing to confirm their real estate occurrences on lands outside of zoning plans and in the border areas with Turkey and Iraq to obtain prior security approval issued by a decision of the Minister of Interior based on a proposal from the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, and approval from the Ministry of Defence. This is per the Law No. 41 of 2004 Determination of Border Areas, amended by Decree No. 43 of 2011. Law No. 41 of 2004 and its amendments aim to impose a security belt within the Syrian territories along the borders, limiting legal transactions in real estate ownership in border areas.

Practically, anyone wishing to conduct any real estate transaction in the border area must undertake the legal licensing’s administrative process. This involves submitting a request to the Directorate of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, accompanied by individual registration extracts for the parties involved in the real estate transaction, a copy of the legal contracts between them, a real estate registration statement, and a land area statement. The property details, parties involved in the real estate transaction, and the request for legal licensing are then sent to the Ministries of Interior and Defence, which contact the security services to conduct a security study on the contract parties. Based on this study, security approval or rejection is given.

Until 2011, parties involved in a real estate sale, for example, were required to present the legal licence during the progression of a lawsuit to confirm the property sale contract in the Civil Court of First Instance. If the legal licence was not presented, the lawsuit would later be dismissed in court. Buyers often resort to a court ruling to prove the purchase of a property. This is done for various reasons, including when the real estate is not subdivided, there is difficulty in obtaining prior security approval, or there are problems obtaining a construction permit, even if the land is ready for construction.

Often, lawyers would suffice with filing a lawsuit to confirm a real estate sale contract and registering it in court. If the legal licence was approved, they would continue with the lawsuit; if it was rejected, they would be satisfied with a copy of the session minutes, which the buyer would use as proof of their property ownership.

However, Law No. 43 of 2011, which amends Law No. 41 of 2004, abolished this possibility and mandated a legal licence before filing the lawsuit. The security apparatuses require that parties involved in real estate transactions in the border areas reside in Syria when requested for an investigation, or their departure from Syria must have been legal through official crossings and airports. This condition often deprives many refugees in neighbouring countries who left Syrian territories through irregular means of obtaining a legal licence. The security study to approve or reject the legal licence typically takes four months. In case of rejection, one must wait a year before reapplying for the legal licence to the Directorate of Agriculture.

In practice, obtaining security approval for the legal licence is difficult if one of the transaction parties is Kurdish. The Syria Report has not found any circular or decision from any official Syrian body prohibiting Kurds from receiving security approvals for legal licensing. This remains the case even after Decree No. 49 of 2011 issuance, which granted Syrian nationality to those registered as “foreigners” in Hassakeh. Security personnel meticulously investigate details about the parties involved in the real estate transaction, including their tribal and ethnic lineage, relatives, whereabouts and professions. They interview neighbours, work colleagues, mukhtars and others. Lists of names whose legal licensing applications have been rejected are displayed in the real estate documentation offices.

Kurdish farmers in border areas often resort to concluding informal sale contracts when purchasing land and informal sharecropping or agricultural investment contracts when leasing it. In both cases, these contracts are not documented with any official authority, which affects land prices.

Kamiran, who is Kurdish, told The Syria Report that in 2020, he bought agricultural land in the border area with Turkey and paid an SYP 150,000 (around USD 170 then) bribe to the security personnel who investigated him at his home. Despite this, his application for legal licensing was rejected, and he was forced to sell the land he had purchased under an informal contract.

Similarly, Hasni, who is also Kurdish, told The Syria Report that he obtained the legal licence to register agricultural land he bought outside the zoning plan in his name in the land registry after paying USD 2,000 to a security services intermediary.

On the other hand, Mohammad, an Arab, said his father bought a two-hectare plot of land 20 years ago in the countryside of Qamishli. However, he did not obtain the legal licence because the seller had been convicted in a separate case involving the Agricultural Cooperative Bank. Consequently, Mohammad’s father could not secure a court ruling affirming the validity of his purchase, and all he possesses is a document registering the lawsuit. A few years ago, the original seller of the land returned and claimed it, arguing that it was still in his name in the Land Registry. Therefore, Mohammad resorted to a court affiliated with the judicial apparatus of the AANES and filed a property extortion lawsuit. However, the court also rejected his case due to the absence of a court ruling or ownership deed in Mohammad’s family’s possession.

Property Extortion in Damascus’ Ash Al-Warwar Informal Settlement

27-06-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

Over the course of the war, many residents of the informal Ash Al-Warwar settlement in Damascus have been expelled from their homes due to their sectarian or ethnic affiliations or their political orientations. Militias loyal to the regime or newly displaced people to the area have seized the properties of these absentees.

Ash Al-Warwar emerged in the early 1970s as a series of scattered buildings in a rugged mountainous area overlooking Barzeh Al-Balad, a Damascus district. These buildings were constructed on public properties that the residents seized and divided into small plots of land on which they built tightly connected homes devoid of construction safety conditions. The land is owned by the municipalities of Barzeh in Damascus and Maaraba in Rural Damascus, which means it falls administratively under those municipal authorities. However, the governorate of Damascus is directly responsible for providing services in the settlement, while it is under the authority of Al-Qaboun police force.

Most residents of Ash Al-Warwar are Alawites from the Masyaf area in the Hama governorate, and some neighbourhoods are named after Masyaf villages, such as Deir Mama, Al-Naqir and Baarin. The settlement also includes small neighbourhoods of Sunni migrants from Deir-ez-Zor and Al-Qalamoun in Rural Damascus, as well as Kurdish migrants from northeastern Syria. A significant proportion of residents are from low-income families and are minor public sector and ministry employees, especially in the army and security agencies.

Public services in Ash Al-Warwar were already poor before 2011 on various levels. For instance, the area was not served by a transport line to and from the capital city and taxis often refused to enter it due to its rough and narrow roads. The water and sanitation network was dilapidated, and residents often extended sections of it at their own expense, without supervision and maintenance by the government water and sanitation institutions. Residents depended on securing their consumer and food needs from the nearby Barzeh neighbourhood due to the lack of public markets in Ash Al-Warwar.

In 2011, with increasing sectarian polarisation with Barzeh, armed popular committees loyal to the regime formed in Ash Al-Warwar and integrated with the National Defence Forces, a regime militia, by the end of 2012. The National Defence Forces in Ash Al-Warwar and opposition forces in Barzeh engaged in violent battles that, by 2013, destroyed the frontline area between them. Both sides also exchanged sectarian cleansing operations to expel the remaining Sunnis from Ash Al-Warwar and Alawites from Barzeh. The National Defence Forces seized these homes in Ash Al-Warwar, distributing them to the families of its fighters from the neighbourhood and to displaced Alawite people coming from Al-Baath Street in the nearby Tishreen informal settlement next to Al-Qaboun.

Aliaa is originally from the Syrian coast and now lives with her husband in a formerly predominantly Kurdish neighbourhood of Ash Al-Warwar. The Kurdish residents, who were mostly Sunni, refrained from open conflict against regime forces on a sectarian basis in most parts of Syria, including Ash Al-Warwar. However, most of the Kurds were expelled from Ash Al-Warwar, and the National Defence Forces took over their houses to accommodate the families of its fighters. Aliaa says that some of these Kurdish families migrated to Europe, while others ended up in Hassakeh. She adds that the National Defence Forces justified the seizure of their properties by saying that a Kurdish state had been established in northeastern Syria and that they should move there.

According to Aliaa, two years ago few of those Kurdish residents returned to Ash Al-Warwar and demanded their homes back. Some of them sought help from the Fourth Division detachment present in Ash al-Warwar in order to evict the current occupants of their homes. In some cases, the Fourth Division intervened and evacuated the occupants, after the returnees showed water and electricity bills, and witnesses from their old Alawite acquaintances and neighbours testified that they were the original homeowners. In other instances, the current occupants of those properties refused to leave.

Ramia is a young Kurdish woman who used to live in Ash al-Warwar with her mother and siblings, in a two-storey building built by her late father. As the violence in the neighbourhood escalated during the war, all her male siblings migrated to Europe, and Ramia moved to live in the neighbouring Kurdish-majority RuknEddin neighbourhood in Damascus. National Defence Forces took over their building and distributed its apartments to the families of its fighters. Ramia kept all the documents proving her family’s ownership of the building, which are receipts for paying water, electricity and telephone bills. About a year ago, Ramia filed a complaint with the Public Prosecution, accusing the occupants of the building of theft. One of the lawyers told her that she would not be able to reclaim the building by filing a property seizure lawsuit, but only if she filed a criminal complaint. Ramia accompanied a police patrol, to which she paid a hefty bribe, that helped her recover the building.

It is difficult for residents to file property extortion lawsuits, as they do not have sufficient property documents. Therefore, it is easier to file a complaint to the Public Prosecution in Damascus, where the complainant reports that their home has been robbed, then extorted. The prosecution then transfers the complaint to Al-Qaboun Police Department, which in turn sends a police patrol to the house to evacuate its occupants. The patrol requests on-site witnesses to confirm the complainant’s ownership of the house. In other instances, the complainant seeks help from the Fourth Division’s local detachment to carry out the same task, even though it is not within its jurisdiction.

Saeed is from Idlib and lived in a neighbourhood mostly inhabited by people from Deir-ez-Zor in Ash Al-Warwar. He was forcibly evicted from his home after a group of young men broke into it, assaulted him and accused him of belonging to an opposition faction. Most of the Sunni residents evicted from Ash Al-Warwar were from Idlib. Usually they were driven out by arresting family members, accusing them of belonging to opposition factions and threatening intimidation. Saeed did not leave the country but ended up renting a house in a nearby neighbourhood. An Alawite family now lives in his home in Ash Al-Warwar. Saeed fears approaching any type of authority to reclaim his house, and he has no intention of returning to the neighbourhood after what he has endured there. Saeed’s ultimate hope is for the family living in his house to pay him rent.

Rida, a young Alawite man, lived with his family in a rented house in the nearby Barzeh Al-Balad neighbourhood. Rida has a brother working in the intelligence services, and the whole family supports the regime. The family was threatened by opposition factions to leave Barzeh, through pamphlets placed in front of their house urging them to leave the neighbourhood, and by writing threats on their door.

Rida’s family left Barzeh in late 2011 and lived in a building in Ash Al-Warwar, the owner of which is from Barzeh and had also been displaced from the neighbourhood. The building consists of three storeys near the main road leading to Tishreen Military Hospital. Rida’s family took over the entire building, refusing to share it with the National Defense Forces. In 2016, a confrontation broke out between the two parties, involving bombs and light weapons. The family still lives in the building, supported by the local mukhtar, known for his strong relations with high-ranking officials in the security and military services.

Explained: Judicial Overlap and HLP Rights in AANES-Held Areas

27-06-2023/in Analysis & Features, HLP /by Rand Shamaa

Since its founding in 2014 under the name “Democratic Federation of Rojava – Northern Syria”, the Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria (AANES) has clashed with Damascus-run authorities, which continued to function in the so-called “security squares” held by the regime in various cities of northeastern Syria. The AANES judiciary also has seen competition and dispute with the Damascus government, affecting matters related to housing, land and property rights.

As AANES took control of prisons in the area in 2014, it established a judicial structure headed by the Social Justice Council to act as ministry of justice, and affiliated diwan departments to act as courts. These diwans have two levels: first are the Social Justice Diwans, which oversee various cases except for terrorism-related suits. Second are the Discrimination Authority Diwans, which act as appeals courts. This system has seen significant difficulties and challenges, including continued operation of Damascus-run courts, which operate in the regime-run security squares.

These regime-run courts have continued their duties at all levels of litigation: reconciliation, first instance, appeals and cassation. However, the authority of the judicial police charged with executing the court’s decisions are limited only to the security square areas. If the judicial officer is asked to send a subpoena or other notification to someone outside of the security square, then the phrase “outside of authority” is written on the request.

Meanwhile, the AANES recognises rulings made by the Damascus-run courts, including those affirming sales contracts, leases, termination of common ownership, settlement and more. In real estate cases, there is an additional problem, however: an absence of official Land Registry records under the AANES amid continued reliance on records made by local departments of the central Directorate of Cadastral Affairs in Damascus. Those local departments have also continued their duties inside the security squares.

To resolve part of this problem, the AANES Social Justice Council issued Decree No. 6 in 2021, which prevented Justice Diwans from accepting real estate in-kind lawsuits related to the original property rights for rural properties located outside of zoning plans. The decree required a return to pre-2013 status for rural properties and state-owned properties, i.e., before the announcement of the formation of the Democratic Federation of Rojava – Northern Syria. It also obligated Justice Diwans not to consider lawsuits related to the origin of the real estate rights, which had previously been considered and ruled on by a final judicial decision, regardless of the issuing entity. The Council said this decree was meant to preserve the rights of citizens, avert any potential future disputes, maintain public interest and safeguard property rights. One of the reasons for issuing the decree was the AANES’ desire to stop judicial overlap in the areas it controls.

Decree No. 6 could mean some risks to HLP rights, such as freezing the hearing of some real estate dispute cases, resulting in time lost. For example, a man named Ahmad in Qamishli told The Syria Report that an AANES court refused to consider his lawsuit to reclaim a property before the government’s Civil Court of First Instance in the city decided on a lawsuit over the origin of the property right between him and his opponent. Only once Ahmad obtains a ruling from the Damascus-run court confirming his ownership can he proceed to implementation through the regime-affiliated judicial officer in Qamishli. However, if this implementation is not done properly because the property is “outside of control”, it is then Ahmad’s right to file a lawsuit for property extortion before the AANES’ courts, which resort to Asayish forces for implementation.

Fakhri is another resident who has been impacted by judicial overlap. He was young when his father died in 2001, before the implementation of a judicial ruling to recover a property from occupants who refused to hand it over. In 2019, Fakhri requested implementation of the 2001 decision through the implementation department of the Damascus-affiliated judicial officer in Qamishli. The judicial officer refused because the neighbourhood where the property is located is “outside of security control.”

Fakhri filed a lawsuit in 2022 before an AANES court for handover of the extorted property. The court refused to consider the lawsuit and returned it based on Decree No. 6, after the property occupant highlighted a judicial decision issued in 2013 by the Damascus-run Civil Conciliation Court in Qamishli, confirming his ownership of the same property. Thus, the dispute over the origin of the real estate right, which had previously been considered and ruled on by a final judicial decision from a court affiliated with Damascus, was upheld.

AANES courts do consider property extortion cases, according to Decree No. 6. Extortion is taking someone else’s property without their consent, or doing so without a legal document of ownership or a legitimate reason. The law does not require coercion as a condition for extortion; seizure without a legal justification suffices. The penalty for extortion, according to the AANES Penal Code, is up to two years in prison, and it is one of the most common complaints received by the public prosecutor in AANES areas.

Upon his return from Germany in 2022, Nabil found that his partner in an industrial shop in Qamishli had sold his share without consulting him. The shop was not divided between the old partners. According to the new sales contract, the buyer’s share of the shop was not determined. Nabil filed an objection to the sale, claiming that he should have been prioritised to buy his partner’s share, as the shop was communally owned. The People’s Court in Qamishli dismissed Nabil’s lawsuit, referring to Decree No. 6, due to the existence of an allotment document issued by the Qamishli Municipal Council indicating the share of each partner, which Nabil rejected. He resorted to filing an objection lawsuit before the regime’s courts in Qamishli for the same case.