Expropriation for Public Utility in Morocco

Expropriation for public utility is the procedure by which the State, a local authority or another public body takes private immovable property — or a real right over it — for a public project, against compensation. In Morocco it is governed by Law 7-81 on expropriation for public utility and temporary occupation, read with Article 35 of the 2011 Constitution, which allows expropriation only in the cases and forms fixed by law and against a just and prior indemnity.

The procedure runs in two phases. In the administrative phase, the public utility is declared and the properties to be taken are designated. In the judicial phase, an administrative court pronounces the transfer of ownership and fixes the compensation. Losing ownership and losing possession are separate events, and provisional compensation is not the same as the final amount — distinctions this guide keeps deliberately clear.

This guide is national and procedural, and it is informational and general rather than advice on a specific file. It does not imply that AvocAffaire acts for any party. Exact deadlines, the applicable procedural rules and any reform of Law 7-81 should be confirmed against the current text for a given case.

Expropriation is the compulsory transfer of an owner's immovable property to a public beneficiary for a declared public purpose. It is not a sale the owner is free to refuse, and it is not a penalty: it is an exceptional power that the Constitution confines to genuine public utility and conditions on a just and prior indemnity.

Under Law 7-81, expropriation of immovables, in whole or in part, or of real immovable rights can only be pronounced once the public utility has been declared, and can only be pursued in the forms the law prescribes (Art 1). Crucially, the expropriation itself is carried out by authority of justice (Art 2): the administration cannot, by its own decision alone, strip an owner of title.

The same law also governs temporary occupation — a lesser, time-limited taking of land for the needs of public works — which is dealt with separately below.

The governing statute is Law 7-81, promulgated by dahir n° 1-81-254 of 6 May 1982 and published in the Official Bulletin n° 3685 of 15 June 1983, together with its application decree n° 2-82-382. Above it stands Article 35 of the 2011 Constitution, which guarantees the right of property and permits expropriation only in the cases and forms provided by law and against a just and prior indemnity.

The court structure around Law 7-81 has since been modernised. Law 41-90 created the administrative courts (1993) and substituted the administrative court for the ordinary court in expropriation matters; Law 80-03 created the administrative courts of appeal (2006). The general rules of procedure that fill the gaps left by Law 7-81 are now those of the current Code of Civil Procedure (Law 58.25), which since 24 August 2026 replaced the 1974 code and unified civil, commercial and administrative procedure — but Law 7-81 remains the special law for the expropriation mechanism itself.

A reform of Law 7-81 has been under discussion (a draft referenced as 07-25), touching filing times, valuation references and publication. As at the date of this guide it had not been adopted or published in the Official Bulletin, so it is not the operative law; it is noted here only as a matter to watch. Article numbers and deadlines should always be confirmed against the current consolidated text.

The right to expropriate is open to the State and the local authorities, as well as to other legal persons of public or private law, and to physical persons, to whom the public power delegates its rights in order to carry out works or operations declared to be of public utility (Art 3).

In practice this means that beyond ministries and communes, bodies such as urban agencies or the operators of a declared public project can exercise expropriation rights by delegation. What matters for the owner is less the identity of the expropriating party than whether the public utility has been properly declared and the statutory procedure followed.

Law 7-81 places certain property outside the reach of expropriation. Article 4 provides that the following cannot be expropriated: religious edifices of the various faiths, cemeteries, immovables that form part of the public domain, and military works.

This is a narrow, specific list. Ordinary private land and buildings, and real rights over them, remain within the scope of the procedure, subject to the protections the law provides at each stage.

Everything begins with the declaration of public utility (the DUP). Under Article 6, the public utility is declared by an administrative act that specifies the zone liable to be affected by expropriation. That zone can include not only the immovables strictly needed for the works, but also remaining portions and neighbouring immovables where taking them is judged necessary to better achieve the public purpose or where the works will substantially increase their value.

Under the application decree, the declaration is made by decree taken on the proposal of the minister concerned. The declaration defines the outer perimeter of what may be taken; it does not, by itself, transfer ownership or authorise possession of any particular parcel.

The declaration of public utility is not effective in secret. Article 8 requires a set of publicity measures: full publication in the Official Bulletin, insertion of a notice in one or more newspapers authorised to carry legal announcements, and full posting in the offices of the commune where the affected zone is located. These measures may be completed by any other appropriate means of publicity.

For an owner, this publicity is the moment the process becomes visible and legally consequential — several time limits and valuation references run from the publication of these acts, so the dates matter and should be noted precisely.

The declaration of public utility may designate the affected properties immediately. If it does not, the properties actually to be taken are designated by a separate administrative act called the act of cessibility (Art 7). This act must intervene within two years from the date the declaration of public utility was published in the Official Bulletin; past that period, a fresh declaration of public utility is required.

The act of cessibility is the point at which a particular owner learns that their specific parcel — not merely the general zone — is being taken. Where the declaration itself designates the properties, it has the value of an act of cessibility and is subject to the same formalities (Art 9).

There is a further time limit at the judicial stage: the properties designated in an act of cessibility remain under threat of expropriation for two years from its publication or notification, and if the expropriating party has not filed the court application in that period, the expropriation can only be pronounced under a new declaration of public utility (Art 17).

The act of cessibility is deposited, with a plan, at the offices of the commune, where interested parties may examine it and present their observations for a period of two months from its publication in the Official Bulletin (Art 10). This is the owner's structured opportunity to be heard at the administrative stage — for example to contest the perimeter, to point out an error in identification, or to raise the total-acquisition question where only part of a building is taken.

Presenting observations at this stage is not the same as the later judicial dispute over compensation, but it is important: it puts objections on the record early, and some rights and options are tied to acting within this window.

Expropriation reaches not only the registered owner but the holders of real rights over the property. The law requires owners to declare, within two months of notification, the tenants and holders of rights over the property so that all interested parties can be identified (Art 11).

Getting this identification right protects everyone: it ensures that the compensation is directed to those actually entitled and that a later dispute does not unravel the transfer. Where several rights exist over the same immovable — usufruct, use, habitation or similar — a single indemnity is fixed on the total value of the property, and the various interested parties then exercise their rights on the amount of that indemnity (Art 21).

Once the public utility is declared, the owner cannot freely develop the property to inflate its value. For a period of two years from publication of the declaration in the Official Bulletin, no construction may be raised and no plantation or improvement made, on immovables within the fixed zone, without the expropriating party's agreement (Art 15). The properties designated in an act of cessibility remain subject to the same restriction for two years from that act (Art 16).

This freeze connects directly to the valuation rules: improvements made without agreement after the property is designated are disregarded when the compensation is assessed, which is why the restriction and the valuation rule must be read together.

Expropriation is not necessarily contentious throughout. Law 7-81 allows an amicable agreement between the expropriating party and the owner on the transfer and the compensation. Where an agreement is reached and deposited at the land registry, it produces the effects of the transfer and divests the court of the matter, so the parties do not need to litigate the amount.

The assessment of value in this phase is informed by an evaluation carried out through an administrative commission. Special protection applies where the owner lacks full capacity: the guardians or representatives of minors, incapacitated or absent persons may consent to amicable agreements — as to both the final indemnity and the provisional indemnity for taking possession — only after authorisation of the competent judge, given on the basis of an expert assessment of the market value (Art 44).

Where there is no amicable agreement, the expropriating party brings the matter before the court. Because expropriation is carried out by authority of justice (Art 2), it is a judge — not the administration — who pronounces the transfer of ownership and fixes the compensation. Since Law 41-90, the competent court is the administrative court of the place where the property is located; the parties elect domicile at that court for the procedure (Art 45).

The expropriating party files an application for the expropriation to be pronounced and the compensation fixed (Art 18), and, on a separate and more urgent track, an application for possession to be authorised. The administrative court's role is central: it verifies that the statutory procedure has been followed and it decides the amount that the Constitution requires to be just.

Ownership passes to the expropriating party by the judgment that pronounces the transfer. That judgment fixes the expropriation indemnity, and it must first record the amount of the expropriating party's offers before setting the figure and ordering its payment or consignation (Art 24).

For titled property, the transfer is carried through into the land register: the land registrar inscribes the transfer in favour of the expropriating party, and the rights of the interested parties are carried over onto the indemnity (Arts 26, 37). The effect is that the former owner's claim shifts from the land to the money.

Taking possession is dealt with on an urgent, summary track. The judge hearing the matter as an interim application authorises the taking of possession by order, against payment or consignation of a provisional indemnity equal to the amount of the expropriating party's offers (Arts 19, 24). At this summary stage the judge cannot refuse the authorisation except for a defect that makes the procedure void.

But possession is not immediate or unconditional. Taking possession may only occur after the notification or publication formalities have been completed and after payment or consignation of the provisional indemnity (Art 27). In other words, the public project cannot lawfully enter the land until the owner has been given the prescribed notice and the provisional money has been paid in or set aside.

It is a common and costly misunderstanding to treat the declaration of public utility, the transfer of ownership and the taking of possession as one event. They are not. The declaration only defines what may be taken; the transfer of ownership happens by the court's judgment; and the taking of possession is a separate, conditional step.

These can occur at different moments and are protected by different conditions. Possession can be authorised urgently against a provisional indemnity while the final amount is still being decided, and ownership can be transferred by judgment even though the compensation dispute continues on appeal. Keeping the three apart is essential to understanding what an owner has lost at any given point — and what is still open to challenge.

The provisional indemnity is the amount the expropriating party offers, which it must pay or consign in order to be authorised to take possession (Arts 19, 24). It is provisional precisely because it is the offer, not the figure a court has found to be just after examining the file.

For the owner, the provisional indemnity is money available early, but accepting or receiving it does not settle the final amount unless there is an agreement to that effect. The gap between the provisional and the final figure is the subject of the compensation dispute, and the law provides for how the difference is handled while that dispute runs.

The final compensation is the amount fixed by the court's judgment (or agreed amicably). The judgment that pronounces the transfer of ownership fixes the indemnity after recording the expropriating party's offers, and prescribes its payment or consignation (Art 24).

The Constitution requires the indemnity to be just and prior. In practice, "just" is worked out through the valuation rules of Article 20 and, where needed, expert evidence, while "prior" is reflected in the requirement to pay or consign before possession and in the payment and consignation rules that follow the judgment.

Valuation is the heart of an expropriation dispute, and Law 7-81 sets specific rules in Article 20. The indemnity must compensate the actual, direct damage caused by the expropriation. It is assessed on the value of the property at the day of the decision pronouncing the expropriation — but with two important limits.

First, in determining that value, no account is taken of constructions, plantations and improvements made without the expropriating party's agreement since the publication or notification of the act designating the property for expropriation. Second, the indemnity so calculated cannot exceed the value of the property at the day the act of cessibility was published (or the declaration designating the property was notified), and no account is taken of speculative increases that appeared after the declaration of public utility.

There is a diligence rule attached to this cap: if the expropriating party has not filed, within six months of the publication of the act of cessibility (or notification of the act designating the property), the applications to pronounce the expropriation and fix the indemnity and to order possession, the ceiling value becomes the value of the property on the day the last of those applications is filed with the administrative court. Because these rules turn on precise dates and figures, they should be applied to the specific file against the current text rather than assumed.

Fixing a just indemnity is largely a question of valuation evidence, and the court may be assisted by an expert to appraise the property. Expertise informs the court on the technical value question; it does not replace the court's legal decision, which remains the judge's. How court-appointed valuation actually works as a procedure — appointment, the mission, the report and how it is contested — is a subject in its own right, covered in the guide to judicial expertise in Morocco.

For the owner, the practical point is that the value is not simply announced: it is argued and evidenced. Assembling credible evidence of the property's characteristics and value at the relevant date is often as important to the outcome as the legal arguments about the procedure.

Two very different disputes must not be confused. One is a challenge to the amount of the compensation; the other is a challenge to the legality of the expropriation itself — the regularity of the declaration of public utility, of the act of cessibility, or of the procedure.

Within the expropriation proceeding, the route is targeted: the order authorising possession is not open to appeal, and the judgment that pronounces the transfer and fixes the indemnity may be appealed only as to the fixing of the indemnity (Art 32). Disagreeing with the amount, therefore, does not by itself undo the taking. Challenging the legality of the administrative acts is a distinct matter, pursued through the administrative-law routes against those acts, and it should not be assumed that one automatically suspends the other. A different situation again arises where the administration occupies or takes property entirely outside this framework, without a completed procedure at all: that is a question of unlawful administrative taking (voie de fait), dealt with separately.

The appeal against the transfer-and-compensation judgment concerns the indemnity, and it is not suspensive — it does not, by itself, stop the transfer or the possession that the law otherwise allows (Art 32 and following). With the modern court structure, appeals from the administrative courts lie to the administrative courts of appeal (Law 80-03), with cassation before the Court of Cassation.

While an appeal or cassation is pending, the difference between the offer and the indemnity — or between successive figures — is handled through security: its payment is subordinated to a bank guarantee produced by the entitled parties, failing which the difference is consigned until the procedure ends (Art 35). The exact time limit to appeal, and the procedural steps, depend on the current procedural law (now Law 58.25) and should be confirmed from the current text rather than taken from older descriptions.

The compensation is paid to those entitled, but the law provides for consignation — payment into the Deposit and Management Fund (Caisse de dépôt et de gestion) — where the entitled parties have not come forward, or where the documents of title are not produced or are judged insufficient. In such cases notices are posted, and an opposition period runs before the money can be released; if opposition is raised, the sum stays consigned until a court decision or a proper release settles who is entitled.

The law also protects the owner against delay: interest runs of right where the sums due are not paid or consigned within one month of the notification or publication of the decision, and where consigned sums are not released within one month after valid title is produced. Beyond these special rules, recovering money the administration has been ordered to pay connects to the ordinary rules for enforcing a court judgment in Morocco, which are not restated here.

How the taking interacts with the land title depends on the property's registration status. For registered property (a titre foncier), the expropriating party may enter a provisional entry (prénotation) on the title to preserve its right, supported by the order authorising possession, and the transfer is ultimately inscribed by the land registrar at ANCFCC (Arts 25, 37). This is distinct from an objection to land registration, which concerns the creation of a title rather than a public taking.

For property under registration, the deposit of the possession order at the land conservation is noted in the register of oppositions. For unregistered property, no act of alienation or creation of a real right is opposable to the expropriating party unless it acquired a certain date before the order authorising possession or the amicable agreement. Where ownership is genuinely disputed or the title documents are insufficient, the compensation is consigned until the true right-holders are identified, so the taking can proceed while entitlement is resolved separately.

Expropriation does not ignore the rights that others hold over the property. Mortgages and other registered charges, tenants, and holders of usufruct, use or habitation are interested parties whose rights are, as a rule, carried over onto the indemnity: a single indemnity is fixed on the total value of the property and the various holders exercise their rights on that amount (Art 21). Where the property is co-owned and the taking interacts with a division among co-owners, that is the domain of judicial partition of property, not of the expropriation itself.

For a mortgagee or a tenant, this means the taking does not simply erase the right; it transposes it onto the compensation, subject to identification and to the payment and consignation rules. Getting identified as an interested party in time is what secures a claim on the money.

Law 7-81 also governs temporary occupation, which is a lesser and time-limited taking, not a permanent expropriation. It authorises the provisional possession of land for the needs of public works — for example to carry out surveys, to deposit materials or to extract materials (Arts 50 and following). Entry onto private property, other than dwelling houses, is authorised by an administrative act stating the nature of the operations, the area concerned and the probable duration.

Temporary occupation gives rise to its own compensation, fixed — failing agreement — by the administrative court, taking account of the damage to the surface, the value of any materials extracted and any resulting increase in value, with a contradictory record of the state of the premises drawn up by experts (Arts 54, 56). It is capped in time: occupation authorised for extraction or deposits cannot exceed five years, and if it continues beyond that period the administration must proceed to expropriation in the ordinary forms (Art 57).

Expropriation reaches property in Morocco regardless of where its owner lives. A Moroccan living abroad or a foreign owner is subject to the same substantive rules; nationality does not change the public-utility test or the valuation rules. What changes is the practical management of a procedure that unfolds in Morocco and turns on dates, notifications and local documents.

An owner abroad will usually act through a representative under a power of attorney, and will need to receive and act on notices, obtain the title and property documents, and provide the evidence relevant to value — often with translations or legalisation where required. Because several time limits and valuation references run from the publication of the administrative acts, an absent owner should arrange to be alerted to publications affecting the property and to be represented in time, rather than discovering the taking after the key dates have passed.

Expropriation is a procedure where early, informed action matters, and a lawyer in Morocco can help an owner navigate it. In general terms, counsel may review the declaration of public utility and the act of cessibility, check that the publicity and notification formalities have been complied with, and verify the identification of the title, shares and rights affected.

Counsel may also separate the two distinct battles — the legality of the taking and the amount of the compensation — and pursue each through its proper route; coordinate the valuation evidence and any expertise; monitor the payment or consignation of the provisional and final indemnity; and see the transfer and the interested parties' rights correctly carried through at the land registry, and the resulting amounts collected. This is a general description of how a lawyer may assist; it is not an offer of representation.

Law 7-81 on expropriation for public utility and temporary occupation, promulgated by dahir n° 1-81-254 of 6 May 1982 (Official Bulletin n° 3685 of 15 June 1983), and its application decree n° 2-82-382.

The 2011 Constitution, Article 35 (right of property; expropriation only in the cases and forms fixed by law, against a just and prior indemnity); Law 41-90 instituting the administrative courts; Law 80-03 instituting the administrative courts of appeal; and the current Code of Civil Procedure (Law 58.25) as the general procedural framework. The land-registration framework and ANCFCC apply to the title consequences of the transfer.

This guide reflects the framework in general terms; the consolidated current text, the applicable article numbers and any reform of Law 7-81 should be verified from official sources for a specific case.

Common questions about expropriation for public utility in Morocco.