The Survey and Land Registration Bureau is the governmental body in charge of land, aerial, and hydrographic survey services, and the registration of real estate properties in the Kingdom of Bahrain.
Established in 1924 as the "Topo Directorate" – "Topo" believed to be short for Topography, the name remained official until the 2nd of April, 1967, when the directorate became the "Land Registration Directorate".
On the 14th of October, 2002, HM King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa, Bahrain's Monarch, issued Royal Decree No. 39 for the year 2002, authorizing the reorganization of the directorate to become the "Land Registration Bureau". His Majesty's following Decree No. 34 for the year 2003 merged the Survey Directorate, formerly under the Ministry of Works and Housing, with the Land Registration Bureau to form the Survey and Land Registration Bureau (SLRB) on April 19, 2003.
SLRB Main Objectives:
Protecting the stability of real estate property ownership.
Strengthening and supporting property reliance and related credit issues.
SLRB Directorates:
The SLRB is divided into 3 general directorates:
The General Directorate of Surveying
The General Directorate of Land Registration
The General Directorate of Resources and Information System
The first 2 directorates collaborate to carry out the main SLRB responsibilities, while support is provided by the 3rd directorate's 2 main branches: Human and Financial Resources and Information System.
1. The General Directorate of Surveying:
The Survey Directorate was established in light of the Amiri Decree No. 2 for the year 1978 as part of the Ministry of Housing. It became part of the SLRB as of 2003, and is comprised of 3 branches:
The Cadastral Survey Directorate
The Topographical Survey Directorate
The Hydrographic Survey Office
Collectively, the combined efforts of the General Directorate for Surveying and its 3 branches cover all aspects of surveying: cadastral, topographical, geodetic, and hydrographic surveys. In addition, the directorate produces maps and projection charts through advanced methods of cartography. Related reports are respectively published as part of the SLRB's concern for public benefit and the needs and requirements of ministries and other government entities.
All surveyed data rely on a highly accurate, country-wide, geodetic network that is constantly maintained and improved through the maintenance, increase, and distribution of geodetic marker density using cutting-edge technology.
2. The General Directorate of Land Registration:
One of the oldest directorates in the Kingdom's government; In service since 1924, the General Directorate of Land Registration was the basis for all national records in the field of property registration, maps, and surveying. Its significance comes from the government's early awareness of the importance of tracking such information. Known In its early days as the "Topo Directorate", it completed a general property survey in 1926 and stored the collected data in official "General Survey Records", which is considered today as one of the SLRB's most important source of reference for tracing the origins of land ownership for private and public property.
The 2nd of April, 1967 saw the directorate's name change to "The Land Registration Directorate", and is comprised of:
The Technical Affairs Directorate
The Registration and Follow-up Directorate
3. The General Directorate of Resources and Information Systems:
Providing central support to the 2 main directorates, this directorate consists of:
The Directorate of Human and Financial Resources
The Directorate of Information Systems
The 2 directorates work on developing programs – human and computer based – to enhance the performance of personnel and record systems, and to achieve compliance with the work values and ethics of the Civil Service Bureau. Training programs are offered to improve employee performance, and development strategies are planned for the advancement of database-related elements to facilitate integration with other databases in the upcoming e-Government network.
