Land_Registry – Syria Report

The estate inheritance inventory document (EIID) is the fundamental basis for identifying the names of a deceased person’s heirs, clarifying their degree of kinship and determining their entitled shares of the inheritance. This document can only be issued after the person dies, their death is registered in the Civil Registry, and the heirs extract a death certificate and family registration statement. Afterwards, the relevant court can be consulted to obtain the EIID. The court then appoints an expert to determine the heirs and their shares in the estate.

The general rule in distributing shares among the heirs is to consider the entire estate as a single unit valued at 2,400 shares, distributed to the heirs each according to the size of their personal share. This rule applies regardless of the number of heirs and the size of the estate.

Through the EIID, each heir can subsequently handle their inheritance share, such as selling all or part of it. If one of the heirs sells or does other actions of the estate’s properties before organising the EIID and sells a larger share than what is allotted to them, this is considered selling someone else’s property. This action cannot be executed without the consent of the rest of the heirs.

The importance of the EIID stems from its role in clarifying the status of the estate’s owners in legal disputes. Article 85 of the Land Registry Law No. 188 of 1926 states that proving the rights of the legal heirs is done by presenting the inheritance certificate (EIID) if the estate is owned. Therefore, an heir may not file a lawsuit against another heir unless they present an EIID before the court.

However, if someone other than the heirs files a lawsuit against the estate (to collect a debt, for example), the lawsuit must be against the heirs identified in the EIID. The claimant can obtain a certified copy of the EIID and present it to the court handling the lawsuit if the heirs have previously set up the document. If they have not, the claimant can request the court to create a special EIID for the lawsuit during the same case.

If the estate is Amiri land, the conciliation judge must decide the case according to Article 85 of the Real Estate Registry Law.

It is necessary to clarify the difference between the EIID set up by the heirs and an EIID specific to a legal case. The EIID set up by the heirs is considered general and can be used in various cases, both by the heirs and by third parties with rights (creditors, for example). On the other hand, the EIID specific to a particular case is limited to that case and cannot be used in another lawsuit.

To extract certified copies of the EIID, the heirs must preserve the decision number and date of the original EIID.

On the other hand, the EIID serves as a legal solution to cease legal disputes upon the death of one of the parties in a lawsuit. The lawsuit cannot continue unless an EIID for the deceased is presented, representing them by the heirs in the ongoing legal dispute. After notifying the heirs, the court continues the proceedings in accordance with Article 166 and the following articles of the Civil Procedure Law.

The EIID must be created in accordance with the nature of the estate. Generally, movable assets and real estate located within a given zoning plan require a Sharia EIID for their division. However, if among the estate’s properties there are Amiri lands – i.e., those located outside of a zoning plan – a legal EIID is necessary for their division.

The difference between the two types is that the Sharia EIID is produced by a Sharia court according to the provisions of inheritance and bequests in Islamic law, as stipulated in the Personal Status Law. On the other hand, the legal EIID is produced by the civil reconciliation court within the jurisdiction in which the heirs reside, and the inheritance is subject to the provisions of the Law on the Transfer of Immovable Property of 1928, which regulates the provisions for transferring Amiri lands to heirs.

It is crucial to emphasise that the production of the EIID primarily depends on the information provided by the heirs. Therefore, any incorrect information is considered a distortion of the truth and entails criminal liability as it constitutes a forgery crime, according to judicial precedent No. 115, Decision 247 of 2002. Such cases could include the heirs intentionally omitting the name of one of the beneficiaries to deprive them of their inheritance.

From the 16th century until the end of Ottoman rule in Syria, the Sharia courts regulated the documentation for proving real estate ownership and entered them into their records. These records are still preserved in Damascus and Aleppo, and to a lesser degree in Homs and Hama, and are still used before the Sharia courts today.

The modern system of land registration and administration in Syria began with the issuance of the Ottoman Tabu land registry system in 1859, which remained in force until 1918. Meanwhile, the current real estate system, with its institutions and laws, began only with the French mandate of Syria and Lebanon. The French High Commissioner issued four decrees based on French, German and Swiss laws in order to reform the real estate system in Syria and Lebanon:

Decree No. 186 of 1926, which included the system for real estate delimitation and census; Decree No. 187 of 1926, which identified the mechanisms for delimitation and census; Decree No. 188 of 1926, which included the Land Registry Law; and Decree No. 189 of 1926, which carried the executive instructions for the Land Registry Law.

This is how the modern Syrian state’s Land Registry came to be. Decree No. 188 of 1926 defined the Land Registry as a set of documents containing the descriptions and legal statuses of each piece of real estate, as well as the rights attached to them and any transactions or modifications. Under this decree, the registry consists of an ownership registry book and its supplementary documents, namely: daily book, a delimitation and census record, survey maps, aerial plans, survey plans and any other attached documents.

For Syrians, the term “Land Registry” refers to the place where real estate transactions and other related items are documented. As for the official name of the institution, it is called the General Directorate of Cadastral Affairs (GDCA), and is headquartered in Damascus with sub-departments in each governorate.

The legal and administrative structure of the GDCA has developed over time to meet changing documentation and registry needs. That said, the four decrees issued in 1926, during the French mandate, still exist today, alongside their amendments.

Legislative Decree No. 81 of 1947 regulates the operations and staffing of the GDCA and stipulates opening central and subsidiary departments in the governorates. The GDCA was attached to the Ministry of Justice until 1959, when it was switched over to the Ministry of Agrarian Reform. Finally, Local Administration Law No. 7 of 2010 attached the GDCA to the Ministry of Local Administration.

Originally, there were five central departments to the General Directorate of Cadastral Affairs under Law No. 81: the Administrative Diwan, the Inspection Commission, the Land Registration Department, the Real Estate Survey and Improvement Department, and the Accounting Department.

The number of departments increased over time, and their names and some of their duties changed, as the methods for preserving and archiving real estate documents developed from paper to photography, to digital. Today there are nine central departments: Real Estate Legalisation and Registration; Surveying; Administrative Affairs; Accounting; Central Land Registry; Information; Rehabilitation and Planning; Engineering and Transport; and Internal Monitoring.

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