tenancy – Syria Report

Under Decision No. 951, issued on October 14, the Minister of Interior mandated property owners to register rental agreements with administrative units in whose jurisdiction their properties are located or at Citizen Service Centres authorised to record such contracts. This applies to properties rented for residential, commercial, industrial, or professional purposes.

The decision, bearing the letterhead of the Planning and Legislation Department within the Internal Security Forces of the Ministry of Interior, stipulates that administrative units and Citizen Service Centres must notify police stations in their jurisdiction of any new rental agreements within 48 hours of registration. They are required to provide copies of the rental agreement and personal identification documents for both the landlord and tenant.

Additionally, the decision obligates property owners and occupants to visit the relevant police station and complete a “Contract Notification Form” issued by the Ministry of Interior. This applies in cases where the property is occupied without a formal lease, such as under loan or investment contracts. Regardless of the nature of the occupancy, police must then investigate the legal and security status of tenants or occupants to ensure there are no judicial or security proceedings against them.

Judicial proceedings include:

Warrants: Police-issued orders based on judicial instructions, such as arrests for crimes in progress (e.g., a brawl that leads to injuries).
Verdict Summaries: Issued by criminal courts detailing case outcomes and sent via public prosecution to the police for enforcement.
Police Bulletins: Final judicial orders disseminated to law enforcement and border points for action against convicted individuals.

The decision also uses vague language to assess whether an individual poses a “threat to public security and order,” without clear legal definition. This ambiguity enables authorities to pursue individuals for undefined reasons, violating the principle of legality, which demands specific legal grounds for prosecution or punishment. As a result, Decision No. 951 denies individuals the right to occupy properties without legal justification.

This vague terminology appears to be directed at suppressing political dissent. Syrian security forces are known to issue security alerts and warrants without legal backing to track political opponents. Decision No. 951 facilitates such unlawful actions, posing a serious threat to the right to housing.

The decision coincided with the return of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees from Lebanon, many of whom are wanted by Syrian security agencies but were not detained at the borders. The Syrian government appears eager to avoid alarming international donors and human rights organisations while facilitating the covert surveillance and persecution of returning political dissidents.

Moreover, many returnees face challenges such as damaged or destroyed homes in their original areas of residence. In some cases, returns are outright banned, as in Jobar (Damascus), or conditional on prior security clearance, as in Yarmouk Camp and Al-Hajar Al-Aswad. Entire regions, like Qusayr and its surroundings (controlled by Hezbollah), remain inaccessible. Consequently, many refugees are forced to rent alternative housing, often without adequate state support, while government shelter facilities are allocated exclusively to Lebanese displaced people.

Decision No. 951 requires police to maintain special records for property occupancy, regardless of the method (rental, loan, investment, etc.). It also allows individuals to file direct complaints with the police about unauthorised property occupancy. This provision enables community reporting, whereby anyone can notify the police of unregistered property use. Upon receiving a complaint, the police are instructed to conduct an inspection, verify the claim, and initiate preliminary investigations with the property owner and occupant. Occupants are given 30 days to regularise their status by securing a legal document, such as a rental agreement. Failure to comply results in eviction.

However, the decision does not specify the eviction process, leaving ambiguity about whether the police or judiciary would enforce it. Under Syrian procedural law (Criminal Procedure Code No. 112 of 1950), police cannot evict occupants without a court order. Occupants without legal documentation are considered to have committed property extortion under Article 756 of the Syrian Penal Code. In such cases, the property owner must file a request with the public prosecution, which refers it to a magistrate’s court for investigation. Only after exhausting all appeals and issuing a final judgement can the eviction be executed by the police in accordance with legal procedures.

A decision to set rental values in areas controlled by the Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria (AANES) has not regulated the rental market in Hassakeh. The lack of regulation and other challenges have left tenants, especially displaced people who have migrated to AANES-held territories, the weaker party in the tenant-landlord relationship.

The AANES’ Executive Council issued Decision No. 1 in February 2021 to regulate tenancy and set monthly rent prices in Syrian pounds. Prices ranged from SYP 10,000 to 150,000 for homes, depending on house specifications. The decision also put in place a unified template for lease contracts issued by the Categories Union, which must be formally documented with the relevant municipalities after approval from the local commune and the real estate affairs office of the Asayish internal security apparatus. A commune is the smallest unit of local governance within the AANES and exists at the neighbourhood and village levels. Meanwhile, the Categories Union is an AANES organisation that regulates market professions.

Under the Decision No. 1 of 2021, each commune must maintain records of local rental properties. Each property has a record that includes a description, the owner’s name, the tenant’s name, the contract period, the rental payment amount, and the name of the real estate office maintaining the contract, among other things. This information must be updated whenever any changes occur.

Many landlords do not stick to the prices the decision delineated, however. In practice, rent is priced in USD and can range between USD 40 and USD 250 per month. Landlords and tenants agree to register a pro forma rental amount when documenting their lease contracts with the municipality to comply with Decree No. 1.

The decision also gives tenants the right to file complaints against violators and tasked communes with monitoring the property rental process, identifying violations, and taking required legal steps. However, no complaints have been registered despite widespread violations and public outcry over rising rents, according to The Syria Report’s sources. This gap indicates distrust among tenants who appear to believe that their objections would be futile. Often, landlords deny their high prices before the communes or courts and then refuse to lease to complaining tenants or resort to legal evictions. In such conditions, tenants have little choice but to comply with the landlord and avoid risking material and moral hardship in the courts and complaint committees.

Decision No. 1 states that a tenant must be given an acceptable period of time to vacate the property should there be a dispute between the lessor and landlord. The commune sets the eviction period. However, if the dispute escalates, a committee specialising in real estate complaints sets a deadline between one and three months.

In the first stage of the dispute resolution, the commune can usually mediate the disagreement between the tenant and landlord before either of the two parties resorts to the AANES People’s Courts. According to The Syria Report’s sources, most tenancy lawsuits that make it to the courts are generally filed by the landlords due to the end of the contract period or the failure of tenants to vacate the property.

A landlord may also file a lawsuit for eviction for sabotaging the rented property. Sometimes such cases are filed with malicious intent to evict tenants who refuse to pay the increased rent. When the People’s Court issues a ruling to evict a tenant, then the judicial police or Asayish are then tasked with enforcing it. In turn, the tenant is entitled to submit a complaint about the landlord’s non-compliance with the rental contract. However, tenants usually decide not to take this route as they are the weaker party and risk losing their housing.

Wafed card

Any person who has been displaced from another part of Syria to the AANES-held areas must present a wafed, or “migrant,” card and other documents to enter into a rental contract as a tenant. People residing in AANES whose civil registration is from outside the area must obtain these cards, issued by migrant centres affiliated with the AANES Ministry of Interior’s General Administration for Crossings and Migration.

The card proves that its holder has a civil registration outside AANES areas of northeastern Syria, has undergone a security check, and has a sponsor within AANES territory. Their sponsor must be at least 18 years old and must not be avoiding compulsory military conscription. In some cases, the real estate affairs offices have requested that the sponsor be a property owner. Every displaced person seeking to live in AANES areas must have a sponsor. A person may sponsor up to five people, meaning a displaced family of 10 would need two sponsors.

The migrant card includes personal information and the holder’s current address. The card is renewed every six months, during which cardholders must repeat the procedures, with the presence and signature of the sponsor. The card is necessary for moving through crossings and between different administrative areas.

Migrant cards were introduced in 2019 for security purposes to prevent members of extremist organisations from entering AANES using false identity papers. Before the cards, the Asayish requested that displaced people living in AANES territory obtain residency permits from the mukhtars in their host areas.

However, Kurdish people displaced from the Afrin area of rural northern Aleppo governorate are not required to undergo security checks or obtain migrant cards. Instead, the AANES’ Afrin Societal Association handles their affairs.

When renewing their lease contracts, longstanding displaced tenants must obtain a migrant card to document their contracts formally. For displaced people who are not tenants, such as those living in the homes of their relatives, the local communes request rental agreements or proof of ownership to grant or renew their migrant cards. In such cases, people often have little choice but to draw up pro forma lease contracts and pay real estate brokerage offices SYP 250,000 to register them.

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