Sisi’s Regime Seizes Egyptian Property Citing Owners’ Refusal to Relinquish: Why Now?

Cases of Egyptian ministers issuing decrees to seize private property by force have surged, justified by the refusal of owners to surrender their land voluntarily.

The regime claims the seizures are for public interest projects, though citizens rarely see any benefit. Most involve road expansions and major thoroughfares rather than alternative solutions.

Between August 12 and 18, 2025, Transport Minister Kamel al-Wazir issued a decree seizing 279 plots from 279 citizens in Dakahlia and Qena to build a road, citing the “failure to reach agreement with owners.”

Minister of Local Development Manal Awad issued a decree taking 31 properties in Cairo’s el-Salam district to build a regime-run housing project, citing “owners’ refusal to surrender them.”

The Egyptian Survey Authority decreed the seizure of Nile-adjacent properties from September 1 to 30, 2025, stretching from the Corniche to the highway, “for public interest purposes,” covering dozens of acres.

The Seizure Loophole

These decisions repeat regularly across most ministries, leaving Egyptians surprised when their homes are forcibly taken or demolished under heavy security, with those who resist arrested. The Egyptian regime claims the land is needed for projects that generate profit or roads.

In addition, military-owned companies seize hundreds of acres under various pretexts, empowered by official decrees to control regime firms. The most recent case involved the army’s “Future of Egypt,” which acquired nearly 89 percent of the Arab Company for Land Reclamation in a 23.3 million-pound deal.

Earlier, on October 22, 2024, the Armed Forces Land Projects Agency canceled and refused to renew usufruct contracts for all Nile land from Helwan to Shubra in Cairo, seizing dozens of clubs and buildings, including judges’ clubs.

Even when properties are officially registered, which should prevent forced seizure, the regime exploits gaps where owners lack documented registration. Official statistics show that only 5 percent of properties in Egypt are registered. The rest remain unregistered because the Egyptian regime demands large sums to register them, creating a loophole for seizures.

The wave of forced land seizures has led Egyptians to warn of the absence of legal protections against an aggressive state and to call for a “Union of Egyptian Property Owners” to defend their assets.

Property Takeovers

Since the rise of the current regime under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, authorities have relied on force to seize Egyptian property. Citing the “inventory of state land,” many properties have been taken to be resold to private investors, particularly from the United Arab Emirates.

As the regime’s financial crisis deepens, the economy deteriorates, and debt mounts, property seizures have intensified. Some rely on public interest laws, while others are taken by force to be sold or leased to investors and development projects to raise funds for the budget.

Rarely does a week or month pass without the Forced Eviction Observatory, affiliated with Diwan Alomran (Urban Development Bureau), documenting multiple cases of property seizures under various pretexts. The low compensation offered, compared with the price the authorities later sell the land for, fuels public resentment.

On August 12, 2025, in violation of the constitution, the transport minister seized citizens’ land in Sohag, Qena, Dakahlia, and Damietta to build major roads and thoroughfares. The regime describes these as national projects, while many residents and observers say they offer no real benefit, uproot families, and destroy property for meager compensation. Meanwhile, the regime sells the land for billions of dollars to Gulf investors.

The irony is that the properties seized by the minister were officially registered and should not have been subject to forced acquisition. Residents refused to surrender their land because compensation was insufficient, prompting the minister to evict them forcibly under the pretext of “failure to reach an agreement with owners.”

The violation was repeated on August 18, 2025, when the local development minister issued a decree seizing property in Cairo’s Heliopolis district for public interest as part of the “Eastern Cairo Gateway Development Project.” The seizures targeted high-value land under the claim that owners had not submitted official property documents for voluntary transfer.

Decisions by the transport and local development ministers are not exceptional. In recent years, the Egyptian regime has regularly evicted citizens under the guise of “development,” “national projects,” or “public interest.”

Some Egyptians have called the current regime “the property-seizing and impoverishing authority,” asserting it will enter the Guinness Book as “the most property-confiscating regime in modern history.”

There are striking examples, including attempts to seize land and homes on Warraq Island from their owners and sell them to investors for towers and entertainment projects. The island has become a symbol of residents’ resistance to regime authorities, with clashes with security forces occurring from time to time.

Residents refuse to leave their homes and farmland, viewing the compensation offered as meager.

Earlier, regime authorities forcibly displaced residents of Cairo’s Maspero Triangle, offering cash or promises of expensive alternative housing while selling the land for astronomical sums to investors.

A similar pattern occurred in Nazlet al-Samman, where residents near the pyramids were evicted under demolition orders justified as protecting the archaeological area. Compensation was minimal, while the land was targeted for tourism and investment exploitation.

Meager Compensation

These decisions are often based on the law on expropriation of real estate for public interest No. 10 of 1990 and its amendments, which give the regime authorities the right to seize private property whenever a project is deemed “for public interest.”

Although the law stipulates compensation “according to prevailing prices” plus 20 percent, in practice the amount is largely symbolic. Regime committees consistently undervalue property compared with actual market rates.

Affected residents are given only four months to appeal in courts, which often side with the regime. Many homeowners have no choice but to accept the meager compensation, insufficient to buy alternative housing, or enter lengthy court battles at additional cost. In some cases, the regime authorities begin demolishing property before court rulings, which are repeatedly delayed.

A report by Diwan Alomran on August 18, 2025, highlighted stark examples of inadequate compensation offered to owners in exchange for their land. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s authorities provide no more than 7,700 Egyptian pounds per square meter when seizing property, while the same land is sold in a residential project called “Ahalina 6,” for which the local development minister seized the land, at 20,000 pounds per square meter.

The large discrepancy clearly shows that the Egyptian regime benefits most from these projects, acquiring land at minimal cost and reselling it at multiples of its value, generating substantial profits at the expense of original owners. The gap underscores the imbalance: the regime secures land cheaply through expropriation, sells units at high prices, bolsters its resources, and advances its housing expansion plans, while original owners are left with the least benefit.

Notably, some compensation payments for property seizures are being made by the military, suggesting that the “Ahalina” project is a new business venture for the armed forces.

According to the explanatory memorandum, compensation was estimated by a certified appraiser at 25 million Egyptian pounds for owners of Building 85 on el-Horeya Street in Heliopolis, east Cairo.

Other payouts included 3.8 million pounds for a plot on Fanatis al-Maya Street and 3.338 million pounds for a residential building and restaurant at the intersection of Moheeb and Hussein Kamel streets.

The decree stated that the compensation would be “paid by the financial affairs department of the armed forces,” the Heliopolis district, and the office of the deputy governor for eastern Cairo “after registration of expropriation forms in the real estate registry.”

In April 2025, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly stated that the authorities allocated more than 15 billion pounds in the budget for public interest expropriation compensation in certain areas, highlighting the growing scale of property seizures.

He pointed out that the Survey Authority is legally responsible for this process and for distributing compensation. “I want to assure everyone,” he said, “we do not seize property until the state has deposited the compensation with the Survey Authority. The delays sometimes happen because property ownership is not always clearly documented.”

This coincided with growing complaints about delays in compensation payments, with the prime minister justifying them as legal procedural issues in specific cases, rather than a lack of funds, requiring official property registration.

“There are steps and procedures that must be followed to pay compensation, and sometimes there may be a dispute over the ownership of the seized property, meaning that even the owners themselves are not clearly identified,” he added.

Public Interest

Yahya Shawkat, co-founder of 10 Tooba and head of its Housing Policy Unit, warned that Egypt’s law lacks a clear definition of “public interest” and any standards for deciding what qualifies.

“The law merely lists a broad range of projects described as ‘for public interest’ without specifying the basis for that determination,” he told the local site Manassa on August 18, 2025.

He called for amending the current law to give residents the right to challenge public interest decisions and to determine whether they genuinely benefit from them.

Shawkat noted a major problem in proving property ownership, pointing out that only five percent of properties in Egypt are officially registered. This creates difficulties for owners in proving ownership because the regime typically recognizes only registered properties.

The Law on Expropriation of Real Estate for Public Interest specifies projects considered for public interest. Article 2 states that the following constitute public interest under this law: construction, widening, or modification of roads, streets, and squares; establishment of new neighborhoods; water, sewage, irrigation, and energy projects; construction or modification of bridges, surface crossings, and underpasses.

It also includes transportation projects, urban planning, and improvement of public services, as well as “any work deemed of public interest under any other law.” The Cabinet may add other projects considered in the public interest.

Expropriation may also include, beyond the land needed for the original project, any properties deemed necessary by the authorities to achieve project goals or to conform to desired improvements in form or area.

Owners’ Union

This prompted Magdy Ahmed Hussein, a politician, journalist, and editor-in-chief of al-Shaab newspaper, to call for a conference or union of Egyptian property owners, excluding those who have influence and protection, to defend their assets.

Hussein told Al-Estiklal that he proposed the idea on Facebook after observing that the Egyptian regime in recent years had seized owners’ properties following earlier takeovers of owners’ apartments under the Old Real Estate Law.

He warned that the seizures are expanding and the regime authorities are taking property with ease. He urged owners and tenants to seriously consider forming a united front against what he described as “the government of the Emirates that rules us.”

Hussein also called on tenants’ unions to address the old rent law, to devise solutions benefiting both owners and tenants, and to confront the regime, rather than rely on the law approved by el-Sisi, which Egyptians warn will lead to tenant evictions and conflicts.

Experts note that some properties being seized or potentially demolished are historically significant, such as the Heliopolis Hotel and the historic Groppi restaurant in Heliopolis, which the Cabinet took over in April 2022 to secure the presidential palace, even though these buildings continued operating under previous administrations.

The Heliopolis Hotel houses the century-old Groppi café and patisserie, founded by Swiss Giacomo Groppi, who arrived in Egypt in the 1880s and established a chain of French-style cafés and restaurants in central Cairo to sell sweets and beverages.