Inefficient map storage

Much land administration data was lost during the Gulf Wars and in subsequent civil unrest, as has been noted in other countries (Zevenbergen, de Vries, and Bennett, 2015). Notwithstanding war damage, even basic secure storage for records and maps is lacking, as shown in the photographs in Figure 5.1below of the land registration office in Al-Hillah.

Figure 5.1 Examples of map and file storage in the Al-Hillah land administration office

On many occasions, the land administration departments have lost documents of the landowners. This problem causes delays in development and transactions, and was cited by more than one volunteer in the community. On this matter, one volunteer said that:

“I went to transfer the ownership of my land to the buyer. After completing the long routine procedure, they informed me that my documents were lost and I do need to wait until they search for them or they ask for them from the General Directorate for recording real estate which also needs a long time for such a procedure”.

Another householder noted that:

“From my previous experience with the land administration system a few years ago, I visited the land registration system to change the category of my parcel. However, I was shocked when I saw that the file was full of dust and in a very bad condition and a few papers were lost which they said they would search for. I was very depressed and angry because some documents were lost in a place where we expected them to be safe”

the situation of missing registration books and ownership documents has become worse and needs an urgent solution. The committee also noted that, when documents are submitted, the receiving officer often does not sign for them and there is no way to trace the employee responsible for amending them. In the case of retirement or changes in of position among employees, it becomes very difficult to trace the person who has dealt with lost ownership documents and enquiries (Al-Nazaha, 2016).

The researcher asked an employee who is responsible for storing the records and files of land owners in Al-Hillah land administration system about the loss of some landowners’ documents. She admitted that this situation happens frequently because of high workloads and old- fashioned document storage. In some cases, they will need to ask the owners to re-submit the land transaction documentation, including the owner’s own copy of the Title Deed, or to ask the central Land Registry Directorate in Baghdad for replacement documents. This is a cause of much delay in the process. She suggested that:

“To solve such problems, we need either to computerize all of whole land registration records and make it easier for us and faster for the landowners or we simply need more lockers to store the owners’ documents properly”.

Both the volunteers and the land administration officers felt that a system in such disarray is very difficult to update, vulnerable to corruption, very slow and requires more effort from the professionals who work on it. Importantly, this was felt to be one reason for some landowners avoiding registering their land parcels or even buying or selling property without recourse to the official system. For example, one volunteer noted that:

“The main difficulties of the current land system are the long process of the land administration system and the old ways of storing data. You know that after the war in 1990 many records in the land administration offices were burned which caused disputes between people.”

This inefficient way of storing documents was believed by the professionals to be one reason behind the increased numbers of cases of the forgery of ownership data. A case was reported in Al-Hillah in 2013 where 14 official employees in Al-Hillah land administration system were accused of forging title deeds for many parcels (Al-khabar, 2013). Another case was reported by television news reporter Haider Salih

“One of the largest counterfeiting operations in Iraq captured a group of mafia fraudsters relating to 7,000 piece of real estate or residential land belonging to citizens and officers from the former regime and pieces of land belonging to the state. After

arrest, the gang confessed that they belonged to a political party able to influence decisions” (Haider Salih, 2013)

There have even been cases of criminal vandalism since the war, where registration files have been lost owing to arson at land registration offices (Al-khabar, 2013). Al-Iraqia news has published on-line cases of a number of residential property owners who have expressed their dismay and condemnation at not being provided with title deeds of ownership and renewal for the current year. One of these property owners said that:

“I have ownership since 1995 in Al-Nidaa district in Al-Najaf governorate. However, the Land Registry Department in Najaf declined to provide me with the required title deed and claimed that the reason was a fire in the building of the real estate registry office which led to the burning of records of ownership”

The same report by Al-Iraqia online news presented interviews with some officials in Al-Najaf real estate registry office about the reason for not providing or renewing title deeds for owners in Al-Nedaa district. The officials noted that the reason for not renewing or initiating some title deeds is that the general directorate of real estate registration in Baghdad did not send copies of the records of ownership of those residents, so they were unable to do anything for them.