Are land registry offices open in Lebanon, and which one handles my property?

Also asked as: “Which land registry office handles my property in Lebanon?” · “Are the Lebanese land registry offices open?” · “Land Registry opening days in Lebanon” · “Which amanat al-sijil al-aqari is for my area?”

How the right office is decided#

The Land Registry (السجل العقاري) is kept by property, not by owner. Each property has its own real folio under its survey number, and that folio sits in one office^[9]. You request property certificates, and transfers are carried out, at the land registry office for the area where the property lies^[1,2]. A sale of surveyed property is drawn up before a notary or before the competent assistant head of that real estate office^[10,11]. Inherited property is also transferred at the office of the property's location^[1,12].

To identify the property, and so its office, you need its governorate (muhafaza), district (caza), real estate zone and property number, plus the section and block where they apply^[2,5]. Here is how to find your property's number, zone and section. The offices carry place names: the April 2025 schedules list offices for Baabda, Chouf, Aley, Metn and Keserwan-Jbeil^[3].

We found no official list that matches each village or zone to its office. Ask the notary (kateb adel) handling your file, or call the office named for your caza, and put the question exactly: "Is property number X in real estate zone Y handled by your office?"

Land that has never been surveyed works differently. A registry is opened in a cadastral region only after the delimitation and registration works there are completed and certified^[7,8]. Sources differ on how much of Lebanon is fully surveyed: LIBC (2021) says 50% is delineated and surveyed, GLTN (2024) says 65%, and The Monthly Magazine (2015) says about 54% has final cadastral surveys^[6,7,13].

In 2015 The Monthly Magazine reported that unsurveyed land is recorded only in booklets kept by mukhtars^[13]. Annahar reported on 30 March 2026 that Circular 609/2026 of 25 February 2026^[14] limits the mukhtar's role for such land to identification. The circular was contested as of 30 March 2026^[14,15], and its effect on ordinary private sales is not known, so ask a lawyer before you buy unsurveyed land. See surveyed versus unsurveyed land before you buy a plot in a village.

Opening days: what we know and what we don't#

The only schedules we found were published as news in April 2025. Baabda took new transactions only on Thursdays 3, 10 and 24 April, Chouf took them Monday to Thursday, and Aley, Metn and Keserwan-Jbeil handed over ready deeds on set weekdays^[3]. Aley worked Tuesday to Thursday and also issued extracts (ifadeh aqariyeh). Metn worked on Thursdays, and Keserwan-Jbeil Tuesday to Thursday.

The same schedules list applications to replace a lost title deed, and anyone objecting to such an application could notify the registry office on any day of the week^[3].

We found no live status page and nothing more recent for Mount Lebanon. Treat these days as an example of how offices have worked, not as today's timetable.

Processing takes time even when an office is open. Kallas Law Firm (October 2025) gives about 2 business days for a physical property certificate and about 10 days for a search by owner name^[16]. Expect longer where an office works only some days.

Offices in the south since the 2026 war#

In late April 2026 the Finance Minister said the Bint Jbeil and Ain Ebel registry offices could not be reached. He said the Nabatieh and Marjayoun offices had no notable damage and kept minimum work with some staff^[4]. The paper registers remain the basis of the registry, with no comprehensive backup, and they were not moved out of Nabatieh because moving them would stop the service.

If your property is in the south, ask the Ministry of Finance's land registry directorate which office is serving it now and on which days. Keep copies of every deed and extract you hold. More in what happens to ownership records damaged in the war.

What you can check without going in person#

Since 13 October 2020, OMT outlets let you view a property's title register and receive an unofficial copy. OMT said in 2020 that the service ran through more than 1,000 of its outlets^[5,17]. Give the agent the property's identifiers plus your mobile number and email address, which OMT also asks for^[2,5]. Neither OMT page shows a fee, so ask at the outlet.

According to Legalmondo (June 2025), you can also get an unofficial information form on the land registry website for USD 4^[2]. We could not reach that site to check that the service still runs.

These copies are for reference only. Any transaction, and any court case, needs an official certificate from the land registry office^[2,5,16,17]. In April 2026 the Finance Minister said the registry's database allows the electronic issue of certificates, but he did not say whether, or how, the public can request one^[4]. More in getting a land registry extract and what it costs.