Property Claims Commission

For thirty-five years, from the 1968 coup to the fall of the regime in 2003, the Iraqi state took homes, shops and land from families through confiscation, seizure, irregular expropriation, or by handing state property to people close to the regime. Law No. 13 of 2010, published in Official Gazette No. 4147 on 9/3/2010, set up the Property Claims Commission to deal with that legacy, replacing the 2006 law that had created an earlier dispute resolution commission. In everyday speech the body is often called the "Real Property Claims Commission"; in the law its name is shorter.

The office of lawyer Ali Barakat, in Baghdad, al-Yarmouk, follows this law and its instructions for people whose property, or whose predecessor's property, was taken; for buyers who later learn that what they bought had been confiscated; and for current owners facing a claim by a former owner. This page maps the route; each step has its own linked topic.

What the commission is and where it sits

The commission is an independent body with its own legal personality, led by a president of ministerial rank who must be a law graduate, and answerable to the Council of Representatives rather than to a ministry. Its purpose is two-sided: to give back what was taken unlawfully, while protecting public money and balancing private and state interests. Who can approach it, and what lies outside its reach, is covered in the commission: who goes to it and the limits of its jurisdiction.

Properties covered

The law does not open its doors to every property dispute, only to one kind: property that left its owner's hands through state action between the 1968 coup and 2003, whether for political, ethnic, religious or sectarian reasons, through seizure or irregular expropriation, or through grants of state land to regime insiders. There are important exceptions, chiefly what happened under agrarian reform, and separate committees for the decade before 1968. Before any step, confirm that the property falls inside this circle; the categories and exclusions are listed in properties covered and excluded.

Judicial committees and the appeal panel

Claims are not decided by an administrator but by a committee chaired by a judge, sitting with a land registry representative and a commission lawyer, and following the civil procedure and evidence laws unless the commission's law says otherwise. Above the committees sits an appeal panel made up of judges, including judges nominated by the Kurdistan Region's judicial council, divided into sub-panels. That judicial make-up is why a final decision can be carried out at the land registry like a court judgment.

What a committee decides

A property rarely stays the same twenty or forty years after it was taken: it may have been built on, sold several times, mortgaged, or turned into a school or a road. So the committee has no single answer. It chooses between returning the property to the original owner and compensating him with its value, depending on what has happened to the property and who occupies it now. When compensation is preferred to return is explained in compensation instead of return.

Filing and deadlines

What many people miss is that the commission stopped accepting new claims in mid-2011, yet the right did not die with that date. A claim brought today goes to the civil court and is decided under the same Law No. 13 of 2010. The practical question is no longer "is it too late?" but "which body do I file with?". The steps are in filing a restitution or compensation claim and every deadline is in time limits in property claims.

How a case moves inside the commission

Once a claim is registered, the real work starts in the land registry's records: the commission asks for the property's full history and warns the registry of the pending claim if the plot has been divided or never partitioned, so that nobody deals in it meanwhile. Older claims are heard first. In practice, a carefully completed claim form with accurate plot numbers saves months of correspondence.

People harmed by earlier decisions

Having had a decision in the past does not always close a file. People who were under-compensated under the 2006 law, people whose claims were dismissed because of a cancellation carried out under a 1976 law, and people harmed by the first committees of 2004 were all given a fresh opportunity. The deadlines for those opportunities are in time limits in property claims.

Challenging a decision

A committee's decision is not the last word: the familiar remedies of civil procedure apply to it, together with a challenge in the interest of the law. Where a decision orders a government body to pay or to give back a property, it goes up to the appeal panel automatically. What the appeal panel decides is final. Which remedy fits which case, and within what time, is in appealing commission decisions.

Enforcement and compensation

A final judgment returning a property is carried out at the land registry without transfer taxes or charges for the owner, while cash compensation comes from the Ministry of Finance and is handed over by the commission once funded. The two routes differ greatly in how long they take. The practical steps are in enforcing commission decisions at the land registry.

Heirs and people abroad

Many owners of taken property have died, and many of their heirs live outside Iraq. The law eases both situations: one heir may act for all, and someone living abroad may file through an Iraqi embassy. How an heir proves standing and how an award is shared is in heirs' right in property claims.

Places of worship and opposition offices

The law gives one group of properties a clear rule: confiscated places of worship and religious teaching, charities and the offices of opposition parties go back to the state they were in before confiscation. It also strips force from any decision of the former regime aimed at a particular area where it conflicts with the law, so such a decision cannot justify keeping the property in the hands of whoever received it.

How it differs from an ordinary ownership case

A dispute between seller and buyer, between co-owners, or over an unregistered private sale belongs before the court of first instance under the general rules. What marks a commission claim is that the taking was done by state power in that era. The choice of route affects time limits, proof and who the opponent is; the comparison is in commission claim versus a first-instance ownership case.

Three parties in one file

A property claim of this kind is rarely between two people. There is the original owner or his heirs; there is whoever occupies the property today, who may have bought it in good faith years after the confiscation; and there is the state, which may bear the compensation. Their interests differ: the first wants the property or its value, the second wants to stay or be compensated, and the third wants to protect public funds. Reading the file from the other side before filing helps anticipate defences: will the occupant argue that he built on the land, will the department argue that the property now serves the public? Those questions shape what the claim asks for from the start and prevent surprises that delay a decision for years.

Three situations that keep recurring

First: a son obtains an old registry extract and finds the property in his father's name until the 1970s, then in the name of a government body or another person after a decision he knows nothing about. Work starts by tracing the entries one by one. Second: a current owner bought a flat or house through a property office fifteen years ago and is then served with a claim by a family saying it was confiscated from them; his position depends on what has been built or changed. Third: a family accepted compensation in the early years after 2003 and later found it nowhere near the property's value, and asks whether its right has ended. Each situation follows a different route, explained in the linked topics.

What to gather before starting

A file in this field rests on the old and current register entries from the Real Estate Registration Directorate, a copy of the confiscation, appropriation or expropriation decision where available, and proof of the link to the original owner, such as the inheritance deed. See documents for a property claim. The office can be reached on +964 770 848 7526 or at alibaltaae@gmail.com.

Legal basis and sources

1. Property Claims Commission Law No. 13 of 2010 (Official Gazette No. 4147 of 9/3/2010)
2. Instructions No. 5 of 2010 facilitating the implementation of the Property Claims Commission Law (Official Gazette No. 4163 of 6/9/2010)
3. Property Claims Commission Formations Regulation No. 4 of 2010 (Official Gazette No. 4154 of 7/6/2010)
4. Civil Procedure Law No. 83 of 1969 (Official Gazette No. 1766 of 10/11/1969)
5. Evidence Law No. 107 of 1979 (Official Gazette No. 2728 of 3/9/1979)

Frequently asked questions

Topics in this area

• 01The Property Claims Commission: who goes to it and the limits of its jurisdictionWho goes to the Property Claims Commission and the limits of its jurisdiction under Law No. 13 of 2010: independence and attachment to parliament, the covered period, judicial committees, and referral to the civil courts.
• 02Filing a claim for return of property or compensationHow a claim for return of property or compensation is filed under the Property Claims Commission Law No. 13 of 2010: the form, the detailed register statement, and referral to the civil courts after 30/6/2011.
• 03Documents needed for a property claim before the commissionThe documents a claim for return of property or compensation rests on under the Property Claims Commission Law: the register entry, the taking decision, the inheritance deed, and proof under the Evidence Law.
• 04Objecting to and appealing commission decisionsHow decisions of Property Claims Commission judicial committees are challenged: the appeal panel, objection to default judgments, third-party objection, retrial, cassation, and automatic cassation where the State is ordered to pay or return.
• 05Enforcing a commission decision at the land registryEnforcing Property Claims Commission decisions once final: re-registration in the original owner's name, release from mortgage, exemption from taxes and duties, and payment of compensation by the Ministry of Finance.
• 06The commission claim versus an ownership case in the court of first instanceWhen a property dispute falls under the Property Claims Commission Law No. 13 of 2010 and when it is an ordinary ownership case before the court of first instance: subject, period, forum, remedies and appeal.
• 07Properties covered and properties outside jurisdictionWhich properties the Property Claims Commission Law No. 13 of 2010 covers and which it excludes: confiscation for political reasons, appropriation without compensation, unlawful expropriation, transfer to regime associates, and the agrarian reform exclusion.
• 08Compensation instead of return: when it arisesWhen a Property Claims Commission committee awards compensation instead of returning property under article 7 of Law No. 13 of 2010: public use, sale to third parties, substantial changes, demolition and rebuilding, and the date of the last inspection.
• 09Heirs and the right to a property claimHow the right to claim return of taken property or compensation passes to heirs under the Property Claims Commission Law: one heir suing for all, the inheritance deed, third-party objection, and heirs abroad.
• 10Time limits in real property claimsThe key periods and dates in the Property Claims Commission Law No. 13 of 2010: the covered era, the last date for applications on 30/6/2011, the expropriating body's sixty days, and appeal periods.

Always check the text in force and its amendments in the official source.

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