Abstract
Jordan is a land steeped in history. It has been home to some of mankind’s earliest settlements and villages, and relics of many of the world's great civilizations can still be seen today.
Modern Jordan was born after World War I, when the Ottoman Turks were defeated and their empire dismantled. Trans Jordan became an emirate under the British mandate. The Department of Lands and Survey (DLS) was established among other public bodies, and a number of laws organizing land tenure were issued. These laws have their roots, more or less, in the Ottoman Land Code, which was promulgated in 1857. This explains partly the mediocre rank of Jordan in the 2010 World Bank’s Doing Business Report in the domain of registering property (106/183). During the Ottoman era, all agricultural lands outside villages were considered Crown lands (miri). The servitude of these lands belonged to the Treasury (Bayt al Mal). The actual Jordanian land laws still consider these lands as miri, but they are not actually much different from owned lands.
DLS is responsible for both land survey and property registration. It has achieved substantial developments, such as the digitizing of all cadastral plans and registers. Nevertheless, radical reforms still have to be made to existing land laws and property registration procedures.
Land Tenure in Jordan (Published in "Land Tenure Journal, No.1, 2010, FAO
Husam Jamil Madanat, retired from DLS, P.O. Box 910220, Amman, 11191, Jordan. Tel:962 6 5651010, 079 890 87 81, email: husammadanat@hotmail.com
1- Introduction:
The land that has become Jordan is part of the richly historical Fertile Crescent region. At the crossroads of the Middle East, the lands of Jordan and Palestine have served as a strategic nexus connecting Asia, Africa and Europe. Thus, since the dawn of civilization, Jordan's geography has given it an important role to play as a conduit for trade and communications. Jordan continues to play this role today. (www.worldrover.com, www.mit.edu)
Because of its centralized location, it became a geographic prize, which changed hands many times throughout antiquity. In Biblical times it was known as Gilead, Moab and Edom. Its known history began around 2000 B.C., when Semitic Amorites settled around the Jordan River in the area called Canaan. Subsequent invaders and settlers included Hittites, Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Nabataeans (4th c.B.C.-1st c.A.D.), Greek Seleucids, Romans, Byzantines and Arab Ghassanides (4th-7th cc.), Arab Muslims, European Crusaders (12th c.), Mamelukes of Egypt (1250-1516), Ottoman Turks (1516-1918), and, finally, the British.
At the end of World War I, the territory now comprising Israel, Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem, was awarded to the United Kingdom by the League of Nations as the mandate for Palestine and Trans Jordan. In 1922, the British divided the mandate by establishing the semiautonomous Emirate of Trans Jordan, ruled by the Hashemite Prince Abdullah, while continuing the administration of Palestine under a British High Commissioner. On May 25th, 1946 Jordan became fully independent from Great Britain, and has developed ever since as the independent Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
Jordan‘s total area is 89329 km2, 80% of which is desert, with a population of 6 million inhabitants. The country is divided into 12 administrative districts, which are called ”muhafadhat” (governorates). The Capital city of Jordan is Amman with a population of more than 2 million.
2- Historical background
In 1516 the Ottomans occupied Bilad ash Sham (Greater Syria, which comprises the
actual Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine), and Egypt, after conquering the Mamelukes who ruled over the region from Cairo.
The Ottoman Empire attained a high degree of military power, it expanded to the middle of Europe, and occupied approximately the entire Arab world, but it was prone to collapse since the 18th or even the 17th century.
The only reason for its survival henceforth was that the European countries could not agree on how to split and share this empire. One can be convinced of this opinion when we remember that Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, occupied Greater Syria in 1832 and advanced inside Turkey, where he defeated the Sultan’s army in Qunya in 1839. But he had to stop and retreat back to Egypt when the European powers threatened him. (Apparently, they did not want a new blood to revive the “Sick Man of Europe”).
Afterwards, Greater Syria, and especially Jordan, remained without a government, and the situation deteriorated during 30 or 40 years before the Ottomans could reinstall discipline and security.
Turkey was a military empire. Its main interest was to levy taxes and to recruit men in the army. Those men went to war and never came back. A good indicator of the mentality which governed this empire is the interdiction of the printing press and printed books for about 4 centuries in the entire empire. Consequently, the peoples of the Empire became backward and lagged behind those of the European countries. This laid the germs of collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Thus it would not astonish us to know that during more than 3 centuries under the Ottoman rule, the Arab world did not witness any literature or scientific production.
The situation in the Arab countries continued to deteriorate, until the “renaissance” with Napoleon invasion of Egypt, and the reign of Muhammad Ali Pasha.
Even when the Empire transferred some modern technology, and constructed the Hejaz railway, with the help of the Germans (Work began in 1900 and took 5 years to reach Al Madina in Al Hijaz, Saudi Arabia now), the project was a disaster upon Greater Syria, because they had to cut the forests in order to use the wood for fuel for the trains, especially during the First World War (In 1916 a branch of the railway was constructed to reach Ash Shawbak, in south west Jordan, in order to carry the wood from its forests, and that was the last time anyone saw trees in this region). New taxes were imposed to finance the construction of the railway; one of these newly imposed taxes was that on houses (Musaqqafat), which is still levied in Jordan. (Frederick Peake, A History of Jordan and its Tribes, 1934).
3- Legal bases of Land Tenure:
There is a paragraph in the Ottoman Land Law and its amendments (See the DLS web site :< www.dls.gov.jo> for an Arabic copy of this law, included in the Collection of Laws, Volume 2) which supports our claim that this region became deserted for sometime during the Ottoman rule:
In the first page of this law, which was promulgated in 7 Ramadan 1275 AH (1857 AD), and after Article 2, one reads:
Outline of the Imperial Decree issued on 18 Rajab 1278: “ Since the Wilayat ash Sham ( Greater Syria province) lands were originally Kharajia lands (see below for a definition of this kind of lands) whose majority of owners perished over the years, their land became, by the force of law, Miri (or Amiria ,state) lands… etc.
This clearly shows that the lands of Ash Sham were owned by their original Arab people, and that there were practically no Miri lands. But later on, almost all lands became Miri.
It is worth to state some of the basic definitions in this law:
Article 1: Land in Turkey is divided into five Classes:-
i. Aradi Mamluka:. Lands held in fee simple, freehold lands.
ii. Aradi Miri:. Crown lands, belonging to the state exchequer.
iii. Aradi Mawqufa: Lands possessed in mortmain or endowment.
iv. Aradi Matruka: Lands abandoned without cultivation or ostensible owner.
v. Aradi Mawat: Dead lands, uncultivated and unappropriated.
Article 2: Aradi Mamluka are of four kinds:-
i. Building sites within the town or village….
ii. Land separated from Aradi Miri which has been given into the possession of a person to be held freehold…
iii. Aradi Ushria: places given into the possession and distributed among the (muslim) conquerors at the time of the conquest.
iv. Aradi Kharajia: places left in the hands of the original non-muslim owners at the same time.
When Aradi Ushriya and Kharajiya belong to the Bayt al Mal (State Exchequer) by the death of the owner without heirs, they acquire the effect of Aradi Miri. (Kharaj means the produce of the land, and also the tax (jizya) levied on the properties of non-muslim people whose country was conquered peacefully. This tax is either 1/10 – ½ of the produce of the land (it is called kharaj muqasama (sharing)), or a fixed sum of money assigned to be paid (kharaj muwaddaf) (F. Ongley, mentioned above).
The promulgation of the Ottoman Land Code was a remarkable and vital development in the empire’s administration. But its application continued to suffer from corruption, bureaucracy and centralization. For example, the title deed (Qushan) was to be issued exclusively from the capital, Istanbul. But if the proprietor was in a hurry, he could go himself to Istanbul to get it (one can imagine the huge centralized work and the time necessary to issue title deeds for the land parcels of an empire of that immensity).
This spirit of the ottoman laws has been inherited in the Jordanian laws. This can be seen in the “Law of Sale and Leasing of Immovable Property to Non-Jordanians and to Legal Persons no. 47 for the year 2006”; or the laws concerning Treasury Lands. These laws could have stated clearly who is entitled to get the property, but instead approvals must be obtained from the Prime Minister or the Minister of Finance or the Central Committee of Treasury Lands or the DLS Director General or even all of them (for some transactions), whose signature is a mere complication, considering the huge number of such transactions, which would be signed without really being studied by the signing persons.
Jordan has issued the Civil Law No. 43 / 1976, which superseded the Ottoman Mejelle of 1869. The same thing applies concerning the Jordanian land laws with respect to the Ottoman Land Code.
4- Institutional Arrangements:
The establishment of the first institution dealing with land registration can be traced back to 1857 when the Ottoman government created Tapu, or land registry offices (Tapu means the immediate payment given in exchange for the right to possess land (F. Ongley-translator, 1892. The Ottoman Land Code. William Clowes and Sons. London. 395 p)). The Ottoman government's main objective was to make a kind of land inventory for taxation purposes; and for this purpose it created the "Tapu books", which documented descriptive information about the land, such as its value or rent (yield), owner or beneficiary (user), neighbouring owners, roads, valleys, etc. There was no real mapping or surveying processes at that stage. Jordan legally remained part of the Ottoman Empire until 6th Aug 1924, the date of ratification of Lausanne treaty, article (139) of which entitled and enabled Trans Jordan to acquire the registers and documents related to public and private property. The government soon began re-organizing lands and properties.
In 1927 the Law of Land boundary establishment and Valuation was issued. This law implied defining villages' boundaries, state forests and land properties. The name “Department of Lands and Survey” appeared for the first time in 30/9/1929 after unifying the Departments of Surveying, Treasury Land, and Land Registration. An English official was assigned by the Mandatory Government to preside it. DLS began producing cadastral maps, at 1:20000 and 1:10000 scales at first, and later on other scales were used such as 1:5000, 1:2500, 1:1250, 1:1000 and even 1:500 in some densely built-up areas. Since then the cadastral surveying and registration are combined in one authority and both components form the cadastral system in Jordan.
After unification of Trans Jordan and the West Bank in 1950, the Lands and Survey Departments in both banks of river Jordan were unified. The headquarters being in Amman, it became responsible for all land registration directorates throughout the country. In 1952 and 1953 most of the laws concerning land and water (rights) settlement, registration, etc… were issued.
* Surveying and maps: DLS was responsible for topographic and photogrammetric surveys until 1968 when the Military Survey took over these jobs. In 1975, the Royal Jordanian Geographic Centre (RJGC) took this responsibility. In the 1930’s and 1940’s, the English army had established several triangulation networks, which served as a basis for both topographic and cadastral surveying. In 1988 RJGC accomplished the national geodetic network (1st, 2nd and 3rd order), in cooperation with the "Institut Geographique National (IGN) / France. A new projection system has been adopted: The Jordan Transverse Mercator (JTM) instead of the Palestine Grid System, while the cadastral maps were based upon Cassini system. The base map of Jordan is at the scale 1:50000.
• The usual scale of cadastral plans is 1:2500 inside villages, and 1:5000 or 1:10000 in agricultural lands.
Besides these cadastral plans, the Royal Jordanian Geographic Center (RJGC) owns a complete map cover of the country. The base map is at scale 1:50000 (topographic maps). Moreover, 1:25000 – scale maps were produced for the west inhabited region. However, the flow of information and the exchange of documents between public bodies in Jordan are not always easy. Sometimes it is more convenient and cheaper to ask and get documents from foreign sources. That was especially true in the nineties regarding the geodetic network, aerial photos, satellite images and topographic maps.
Methods used for mapping were as follow:
• Baseline (method) mapping till 1942
• Plan table method till mid of 70s
• Mapping by tacheometry till the late 80s
• Mapping by using modern instruments (e.g. EDM, total station, GPS) since the late 80s
• 1997 marks the beginning of digitising of all old maps
By the end of 1999, 25% of Jordan’s territory -mainly cultivated and populated areas- was cadastred, and by mid 2002 the desert and other underdeveloped areas were also mapped for cadastral purposes (They were actually divided into squares of about 10*10 km, and any development wherein was signalled), and are now undergoing the process of registration, mostly in the name of the Treasury. Today more than 95% of Jordan’s territory is mapped and registered.
The Department of Lands and Survey (DLS)
DLS was established in 1927. Its responsibilities and dependence were modified several times.
DLS handles 3 main tasks: Cadastral surveying, registration of land property and management of treasury lands.
All land transactions must by the force of law be carried out and registered at the DLS. DLS has computerized all its procedures and documents, including the land registers and the cadastral plans.
So a cadastral data base has been established. A rich website has been available since 2002 (www.dls.gov.jo), but its English version is not yet as complete as the Arabic one.
Besides the DLS Headquarters (Centre), there are 34 Land registration directorates (LRD´s) and 2 land registration offices distributed in all governorates and sub- governorates. They are all connected, on-line, with the Centre and among themselves. DLS carries out several tasks concerning treasury lands: leasing, dedication and accreditation; as well as expropriation, and controlling of subdivision and boundary fixing transactions carried out by licensed surveyors from the private sector.
DLS is responsible for licensing these surveyors, besides land assessors and land brokers. It also collects sale tax, and registration fees for the government. The revenues of DLS in 2008 amounted to 379 million JD. (1 JD = 1.4 USD). In 2009, they are about 30% less.
• DLS adopts the parcel-based system of registration. Every land parcel has a unique code consisting of the name (and number) of the village, the hawd (block of parcels) the quarter, and the parcel number.
Both the land register and the cadastral plans have been digitized, Title deeds and plans are issued instantly by the computer. But the cadastral system still suffers from several drawbacks and handicaps. The same proprietor might have different names in the land register, and some different proprietors might have the same name (4-syllable name).
This problem can be solved by adding the national number to the name of each proprietor. DLS has already begun this practice. But the procedure is a little complicated and costs people and DLS a lot of time and effort. But yet it is not 100% reliable.
The cadastral plans do not show names, contour lines, or buildings. They consist merely of boundaries of parcels. Even distances or parcel sides lengths are not shown on the plans.
There are unacceptable discrepancies between the cadastral plans and the reality, a fact which leads to many serious problems. The main problem is that the plan is considered to be the correct reference, and the actual land boundaries must be modified to match those on the plan
A good solution of this problematic situation is to produce and adopt orthophoto maps which show the actual land parcels´ boundaries, in addition to buildings and the type of land use.
5- Current land administration system:
DLS is responsible for property registration. No land transaction is considered legal if it is carried outside DLS. However, there are certain regions which enjoy a special status. The Jordan Valley Authority (JVA) has been managing the different aspects of economic and social activities in the Jordan Valley (Al Ghawr), including those concerning land. In the early 1960’s, as the government irrigated Al Ghawr, the JVA bought plots larger than 200 dunums (20 hectares) (1 dunum = 1000 m²), subdivided them, and resold them to farmer tenants in 30-50 dunum plots (Wikipedia, Agriculture in Jordan). But no title deeds were issued for those tenants until recently, when DLS carried out a property survey and registration in this region for the benefit of the JVA.
A special status exists also in the Aqaba Region, where the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA) is responsible for almost everything there. A somewhat similar situation exists also in the Petra Region.
In the early 1930´s, DLS launched surveying works by defining and fixing villages’ boundaries, then carrying out land and water settlement works, in the agricultural lands first, and afterwards inside the villages. Registered agricultural parcels were usually large: hundreds of dunums. These properties are getting smaller and smaller, being subdivided between heirs. But the law generally does not allow subdivision of these lands into parcels smaller than 10 dunums, or 4 dunums in some definite regions.
Apparently, the law aims at preserving the agricultural lands and maintaining a reasonable minimal area of them. But actually this is not guaranteed. People don´t work in agriculture any more, and if they do, it is a hired worker (usually Egyptian) who works the land. Deserted farms were built over as urban areas expanded. Many parcels outside villages are sold to rich families of Amman to build rural or secondary houses, which are rarely visited.
In the early days following the establishment of the Emirate of Transjordan, and the first land settlement works, the country population was a few hundred thousand. Only a small part of the land was exploited by people, and hence registered in their names. Other lands were considered state or treasury land. But now with a population of about 6 million, people need more land. They try to get treasury land by lease or accreditation. But this is not always easy. Treasury land can be leased to the person who proves that he has exploited the land (although, paradoxically, the exploitation of treasury land is prohibited by law). However, after a 5-year period lease, the land can be accredited to the lessee in return of a moderate price, but only after lengthy and complicated procedures.
So, in general, treasury land remains under-exploited, especially those lands to the east of the Hijaz railway. These lands should be used to establish new agglomerations and housing projects (This is being partly realized through allocating such land to government officials for housing purposes. In 2009 the employees of the Prime Ministry and those of the Ministry of Finance and the departments depending of it were allocated 500-m2 parcels each in Al Ghabawi region near Az Zarqa’, which is a desert region. (5 years ago, judges were also allocated land parcels for housing in the north-east of Amman). The western lands should be kept for agriculture, because they are the only lands suitable for this purpose, thanks to their fertile soil and to comparatively abundant rainfall.
Land management in Jordan has been established on solid bases, thanks to two British directors (1929-1954) of the Department of Lands and Survey (DLS). Land laws have been continually developed to suit the changing situations. Computerization has been largely applied. Considering that working correctly is the normal thing to do, we would emphasize the weak or negative points, which should be rectified. These complications, and many others, have their roots in the Ottoman Land Code and in the mentality that produced it
Some of these negative points are:
• The major part of the country’s land is a state, or treasury, land; which implies the under- exploitation of this land. Consequently many Jordanians don’t have access to land, either for housing or for farming.
• Many procedures are still long and complicated for no logical reason. Everyday thousands of people visit DLS headquarters and the land registration directorates (LRD’s). (Compare this to the old practice in the U.K as it was described in J.J.Wontner “Land Registry Practice, 2nd edition, 1930: In the introduction of the book a phrase is written in bold letters: “The whole business of registration can be conducted by post and there is no need for any audience at the Land Registry” .One might think that the British general directors of the Jordanian DLS would have applied the same system if the situation had permitted. However, 80 years later, Jordan has gone long way and can now do what the British did then. But, alas, no one dares to radically change or develop the laws or the procedures.
• Consequently, everyone is busy in the DLS, and the busiest person is the Director General, who, by law, has to sign every day, among others, hundreds of papers and transactions concerning Treasury lands and transactions of non-Jordanians and legal persons buying land (can he study the papers he is signing?), so he is practically just another executive employee. He cannot and does not have the time to really direct and lead the department, although he has to work 12 hours a day. The same applies for the Minister of Finance, who has to sign many of these transactions.
• One of the old practices still undertaken in DLS is requiring the presence and signature of 2 witnesses for a land sale transaction. So you go out and ask 2 persons whom you don’t know to witness that you are really you. In the good old times people didn’t possess an identity card, and people really knew each other. But now?!
• Another practice which causes headache and consumes time is adding the national number to the land register and consequently to the title deed, or the correction of family name by the settlement judge when one, for example, has to add the definite article “al”, although everybody in Jordan knows that almost all family names are written alternatively with or without “al”. So, many citizens might have property documents with both forms of family name, and which require long correction procedures.
• Land property information is considered confidential. Only the concerned person can have access to information concerning his own property (or else a court order must be presented).This practice is inconvenient for many reasons and has to change.
• Corruption exists in DLS and in the land market in general, as it exists everywhere else. This is normal. But transparency and changing some laws would help:
o When buying or acquiring a land is decided uniquely by the law, and not by requiring the signature of an official or a committee, then corruption can be reduced. (In the book “An Empire of Wealth-The Epic of American Economic Power” by John Steele Gordon, Harper Perennial, 2005, we read in chapter 7: “At the turn of the nineteenth century, obtaining a bank charter required an act of the state legislature. This of course injected a powerful element of politics, and invited what today would be called corruption ...”).
o When land ownership information becomes public, corruption and forgery will suffocate.
o When land values (which serve as a basis for taxation) are defined (for a fixed period) and publicized, corruption in this domain will end.
Registering of rights in land and water was first implemented in the west regions (the inhabited and agricultural lands) according to the “Land and Water Settlement Law”. Lately, settlement works were expanded to the eastern region. These lands were claimed mainly by Bedouin tribes. In 2002, a decree issued by the Prime Minister stopped all the land settlement works. However, many Bedouins still sell lands which they claim, but which are not yet registered in their names.
Such sale transactions are not registered in the DLS, because the vendor does not formally own the land. In this case the sale deed is called “hijja”. The person who buys such land is tempted by the cheap prices.
If the land bought by hijja is in populated areas, such as those between Amman and Az Zarqa´, the buyer usually builds his house on the land, but faces problems when trying to get municipal services such as water and electricity, since he does not have a valid title deed issued by the DLS.
However, DLS has tried several times (the last of them was in 1998) to solve this problem by surveying these lands and registering the lands in the names of those occupying them, after paying a nominal sum to the government.
Many of the beneficiaries did not pay, and the issue remained pending until 2008 when His Majesty King Abdullah the Second offered them the land for free. (Actually for a nominal fee of 1 JD).
• The housing companies enjoy great influence which enables them to obtain preferential treatment for their housing projects.
They are exempted from the 4% sale tax, and the beneficiaries of their housing projects are exempted from the 6% registration fee, for the first 120m². A recent amendment of the Prime Minister decree concerning this subject has given these companies more favours. The fee exemption applies now for more than one apartment bought by the same Jordanian family (It was applicable only for one apartment before). And the maximum area of the apartment has been increased to 300m² instead of 150m², in order to benefit from the fee exemption for the first 120m². However, this amendment is valid only until the end of 2009.
On the other hand, the buyer of an old and used apartment (from a private owner and not a housing company) or an independent house does not benefit from the tax exemption.
• In the “2010 Doing Business report”, issued by the World Bank, Jordan ranked 106/183 in registering property (for a Jordanian company buying land from another Jordanian company in the vicinity of Amman). Jordan’s rank gets backward each year. 5 years ago, it was 75/175,. This rank is calculated according to 3 criteria; the number of procedures (8 for registering property in Jordan), the time required (22 days), and the cost (7.5% of the land value, though it should go back to its normal value of 10% as of 1/1/2010).
Although these figures (for Jordan) have not changed during the last 5 years- except for the cost which became temporarily less-, Jordan’s rank has been getting backward each year because other countries are improving their performance.
The non-Jordanian investor, who wants to buy land in Jordan, must wait a little more (1-2 months) because he has to obtain the approval of the Ministry of Interior.
The cost, i.e. the sale tax and the registration fees (4% + 6% = 10%) is one of the highest in the world. Jordan ranks in this criteria in 2009 was 140/180, advancing almost only some of the world less developed countries.
One negative consequence of the high cost of property transfer is the widespread of the notion of the “House for Life”. People cannot support to buy and sell houses frequently, so the family buys a big house, 150m² or more, even if they do not need this large area for the time being, e.g. the newly married. This phenomenon causes a waste of money for the people and for the country as a whole.
6- Demography:
One significant indicator of the miserable situation during the Ottoman era was the depopulation of Jordan. The Swiss traveller Burckhardt (1811) said that the city of al Karak had only 3 populated villages near it, (compared to 400 during the Memlukides era) and that there was not even one inhabited village between Al Karak and As Salt. (This distance of 150 km includes Amman and Madaba which were ruins at the time)
A question arises: Where have all the region’s population disappeared? Was it the earthquakes, or the plague and other epidemics? Was it the mismanagement and lack of security which enabled the bedouins to attack the villages, causing the collapse of agriculture, and the farmers’ immigration? Was it the compulsory conscription to feed the continuous wars? Was it the feudal system?
In the book of Frederick Peake (History of Jordan and its Tribes, 1934), one finds out that most of the tribes have come to Transjordan less than 300 years before. So it seems that there was a period when the country was almost deserted.
• The depopulation of Trans-Jordan, during the Ottoman Era, helped to facilitate absorbing several immigration waves, such as the Circassians and the Chechens who were installed, by the Ottomans, in several ruins or deserted sites (at that time) such as Amman, Suwaylih, As Zarqa, Na’ur, and Al Azraq. The first group of these immigrants came around 1880.
The Duruz also came from Syria to Al Azraq. This took place after their revolution against the Ottomans, and later against France in 1925.
Internal emigration of tribes was also common, due to different reasons. One significant example is that of some of the biggest christian tribes in Al Karak who emigrated to Madaba and Ma´in around 1880, which were ruins at that time.
In all these immigrations, the immigrants could possess land for building houses and for agriculture.
Then came the 2 great waves of immigration of the Palestinian refugees in 1948 and 1967. Most of them came to Amman and Az Zarqa’. Some lived in refugees’ camps. A part of the land where these camps were built belonged to private owners. Some of these owners have never been compensated for their lands.
The Palestinian refugees could buy the lands they needed since many of them were or became better off compared to most of the East Jordanians; they either worked in the Gulf States, or with the UNRWA, with better salaries compared to the public sector. They also were active in the private sector in Jordan which offered higher income.
During the past 20 years, Jordan “easily” accommodated several hundred thousand Iraqis, who settled down temporarily in Jordan, until the normal life is restored in Iraq.
The enormous hike in land prices created a critical and dangerous social situation. The average Jordanian individual income has not increased, and consequently many people became unable to buy, or even rent, a house, or to buy a land and build their house on it. So a basic need for the Jordanian citizen was becoming out of reach. Consequently, His Majesty King Abdullah launched his initiative: “A decent housing for a decent living”, offering free, or almost free, houses for the needy.
• Women’s Land Ownership;
The ratio of female land owners in Jordan represents (4.9%) of the total number of females (Samar Haddadin, “90% of Women don’t dare reclaim their heritage”, Al Rai Newspaper, Aug.24, 2009, p.5). (However, statistical information in Jordan, especially in Jordanian newspapers, is not always accurate or trustworthy). But the religious law and the land laws give women the right to inherit land, with equal shares or half the share of males, according to the land being miri or owned respectively.
Actually, many Jordanian women surrender their property to their brothers, with little or no compensation. If a man has only daughters, he might disinherit his own daughters, and give his lands to his brothers, or even cousins.
• Tribes´ Range Land:
Originally, Bedouins were not used to cultivate land. They even despised the farmers and their way of life. They used to own herds of sheep, goats and camels. They moved permanently looking for pasture and water. However, each tribe has its own domain of pasturing or control, albeit not formally registered in DLS.
But Bedouins’ life has radically changed since the establishment of the state of Trans Jordan and the other countries of the region, after the dismantlement of the Ottoman Empire.
The newly established borders between these countries interrupted their traditional way of life and their free movement in the region, a practice they used to do during thousands of years. Practically all Bedouins have settled down. In the recent years, many Bedouins were tempted to sell their lands at high prices. With that money they got luxurious houses and expensive cars. This practice led them to sell more land, if available, or to become ruined within a few years.
• When the settlement works began, in the early thirties, it was not unusual that someone refuses to register a land to his name because he cannot pay the annual taxes levied on the land. This happened also and more frequently during the Ottoman era, when they began registering land properties in the last decades of the 19th century. One more reason for people’s reluctance to registering their land property was that they thought of this as a preliminary step, which will be followed by their conscription in the army.
• One of the peculiar ways for appropriating land was that used by Sheikh Sattam Fandi Al Fayiz, at the end of the 19th century. He used to take two persons (witnesses) with him, and go to a location (usually the ruins of an ancient village), build a small cairn, and fire a bullet in the air to declare that he owns the place. By this way, he became the owner of 250000 dunums (250 million square meters) around Madaba. (See : Ra’uf Sa’d Abu Jabir, Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan-II).
7-Some Economic and Social Aspects of Land Tenure
• Land is the most valuable asset in Jordan. This is strikingly true even if there is no potential use of the land in the foreseen future. This was especially true during the period of the last land market prices bubble (2005-2008), when land prices have increased dramatically, especially in the Amman region. This opened the door for speculations which raised the land prices in some places up to 10 times or more, and where the same parcel of land would be bought and sold several times in a short period. Land transactions and speculations became the main subject of conversation in every gathering. It was not unusual to see professionals such as doctors, engineers or lawyers neglect there practice to engage in land speculation activities. Many people made considerable profits, but there was no real increase in the gross national product. What made things worse was the issuing exaggerated spending trends that became the norm. This price bubble was caused by several factors: The huge increase in money transfers from the Jordanians working in the Gulf states, the increasing numbers of Iraqi guests who settled down-temporarily-in Jordan, money laundering, non-Jordanians buying more land (only Arab nationals are authorized to buy “miri” or agricultural land). DLS assessors and management played an important role in this land market price bubble for different reasons. The lawyers and judges also played a role, because lawyers always asked for, and judges usually decided, high values for expropriated lands. This practice helped inflating the land market bubble and increased the financial burden of the Government, due to the ever increasing cost needed for the compensation for these expropriated lands. This bubble had to explode. This explosion was triggered by the global world crisis which began in 2008.
Many people in Jordan lost huge amounts of money in fictive stock markets. So they tend now to offer their land properties for sale in order to get some money. But the buyers are few. (As an indicator of this imbalance between offer and demand in the land market, one can refer to the freely distributed weekly classified advertisement newspapers, where 50 – 80% of pages are consecrated to land sale ads.)
Actually there are many vacant apartments in Amman. They were either bought for the purpose of investment or speculation, or bought by Jordanians working in the Gulf States, so they usually occupy their apartment for 1 or 2 weeks each year.
The most serious point related to apartments in Amman concerns those bought or rented by several hundred thousands of Iraqis. If the situation in Iraq calms down and the Iraqis return to their country, prices of apartments in Amman might collapse.
* As expected, this land market bubble delivered a hard blow to agriculture, whose yield became negligible compared to the profits realized by speculations in the land market. The wheat production has dwindled to satisfy actually mere 1% of the needs. In 1984, 40 000 hectares were used to grow wheat, compared to more than 200 000 hectares, producing 176 000 metric tons in 1954 (AL Arab Al Yawm newspaper, p.5, Dec.15th, 2007). In 2006 449 000 dunums were sown with wheat. A little more than half of this area was cultivated because of draught (Al Liwa’ newspaper, July21st, 2009).
* Arable land is decreasing by 1.2% annually (according to the Minister of Agriculture, July, 2009). Many water springs have dried up or have become very weak. Al Azraq oasis soil and water has become salty.
* Jordan suffers from shortage in drinking water (Drinking water bottles from all over the world are found in almost every supermarket in Jordan). A big project is under way to bring potable water from Ad Disi, which contains a huge underground fossil water reserve near Jordan’s southern borders with Saudi Arabia. However, about 30 years ago, thousands of hectares of Ad Disi lands were leased to influential persons to grow crops such as wheat (They actually planted fruit trees), and they got the land and the water practically free.
* There are several natural reserves in Jordan, such as Ash Shomary Wildlife Reserve (22 sq.km, established in 1975), Dana Biosphere Reserve (320 sq.km) and Al Mujib Nature Reserve (220 sq.km). Wild life is practically extinct outside these reserves. Grazing reserves have also been established, such as those of Al Lajjun and Al ‘Ayishiyya.
* Several qualified industrial zones (QIZ), industrial estates, free zones and developmental zones have been established. Labour force in the QIZ is mostly foreigner (Chinese, Bangali,etc). The announcement of the intended establishment of a developmental zone in a certain region (e.g. Al Mafraq, Irbid) made land prices in that region go up dramatically.
* Mining concessions for oil shale have been given recently for foreign companies. That given to the Shell Company covers very large areas. The other concessions concern mainly cement, marble, petroleum and natural gas. Procedures for obtaining permits and authorisations are usually long and time consuming (where investors’ time is really valuable) and consequently open the door for corruption.
8- Conclusion and Recommendations:
1. In order to stop the degradation of limited arable lands in Jordan, substantial measures must be taken. No more construction projects, including individual houses, should be allowed in the entire western regions, including Amman, where traffic congestion has become unsupportable. The correct alternative is to build new cities to the east. Treasury lands there should be made available for this purpose.
2. Land laws and DLS procedures should be revised and changed, allowing for more transparency, fast service, lower taxes, and consequently less corruption. Although a new unified land project has been recently proposed by the DLS, it is not really better than the actual laws, except in unifying them in one law.
3. There is much to be done in the field of control and accountability. Institutions and individual employees (and this applies to DLS and its employees) should be held responsible for their mistakes and should fairly compensate their clients for any resulting damage.
4. Current information included in cadastral maps is insufficient. There’s a big and justifiable demand for additional information. Where in the developed systems in general, the multi- purpose cadastre is considered as the right approach and the future shape of cadastre, still in Jordan basic information such as buildings and street names are missing from current cadastral maps. Orthophoto maps might offer the solution.
5. Doubts about the fairness and justification of current taxes and fees of different land transactions are widespread. This could be interpreted in either ways: that these taxes and fees are really not fair, or that there isn’t enough effort done by the concerned authorities and bodies in order to explain the methodology and reasons behind imposing these taxes and the current method of calculating them. In other words, there should be more transparency in the approach in which these taxes are defined.
6. Main reasons slowing down the current process of land transactions are rigid and old laws and regulations, long and complicated procedures, lack of qualified personnel, and nepotism, where relatives and private relations have priority.
7. Joint property is a widespread problem. Some land parcels have tens or even hundreds of co-proprietors. This situation complicates any transaction to be carried out on this kind of property, and hence affects the land value. Legislators should endeavor to solve this problem.
References
• http://en.wikipedia.org
• http://www.atlastours.net
• http://www.sitemason.com
• http://www.traveladventures.org
• http://www.traveltoparadise.de
• http://flowersofjordan.com
• http://www.dls.gov.jo
• Options and possibilities to improve the cadastre in Jordan, Mouen Sayegh, 2003
• F.Ongly-translator,1892,The Ottoman Land Code, William Clowes and Sons, London,395 p
• J.J.Wontner, Land Practice, 2nd edition, 1930
• Frederick Peake, A History of Trans Jordan and its Tribes, 1934
• Several Jordanian newspapers: Al Rai, Al Arab al Yawm, Al Liwa’
مرسلة بواسطة Husam Madanat في 9:21 م
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التسميات: land administrationإدارة الأراضي
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