After the Fall of Assad: Property Conflicts, Legal Pluralism, and the Remaking of Home in Syria
Drawing on 2025–2026 fieldwork, this article argues that post-Assad housing, land, and property conflicts in Syria are the cumulative result of pre-war legal pluralism, regime-led weaponization of property fragility, and the current institutional vacuum, necessitating a shift from mere physical reconstruction to the reconstitution of social relations and legal recognition for successful return.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
Home is more than a roof and four walls; it is the physical anchor for memory, family history, and the daily rhythm of life. In many parts of the world, the right to live in a specific place is protected by clear laws and official records that prove who owns what. But in some places, the rules are messy, with different systems of ownership existing side by side, and many people living in homes that were never officially registered. When war breaks out, these complicated situations can turn into nightmares. People are forced to flee, their homes are destroyed or taken over, and the papers that prove they belong there are lost or burned. The question of how to get a home back after such a catastrophe is not just about rebuilding a house; it is about untangling a knot of broken laws, lost memories, and competing claims that can tear a society apart for generations.
This is the reality researchers are now examining in Syria, a country that has just emerged from a long and devastating conflict. Following the collapse of the Assad regime in late 2024, hundreds of thousands of people began the difficult journey of returning to their hometowns. They hoped to reclaim the places they grew up in, but they found a landscape where the very concept of "ownership" had been shattered. A team of scholars from the University of Cologne, Sabine Damir-Geilsdorf and Huda Zein, traveled to Syria in 2025 and 2026 to understand what was happening on the ground. They spoke with thirty-three people, including former refugees, displaced families, local leaders, and even a former official who once managed the land registry. Their work reveals that the struggle to return home is not a simple matter of fixing a broken door; it is a complex battle over history, law, and the right to belong.
The researchers found that the problem did not start with the war. Long before the fighting began, Syria was already a place where the official rules of property often clashed with how people actually lived. For decades, a large portion of the population had built homes or lived on land without proper government paperwork. In many neighborhoods, especially around big cities, people relied on informal agreements, family traditions, or simple receipts for electricity and water to prove they belonged there. The official system, which required expensive and slow paperwork to register a home, was often out of reach for ordinary families. This created a gap between what the law said and what was true in the streets. When the war started, this existing weakness became a weapon. The regime and its allies deliberately destroyed the records of who owned what, burned down land registry offices, and used laws to seize the homes of people who opposed them. They did this to change the makeup of entire neighborhoods, replacing diverse communities with groups loyal to the government.
The destruction went beyond just taking buildings. The researchers describe a process called "urbicide," which is the intentional destruction of the city itself as a living thing. This meant not only blowing up houses but also stripping them of everything that made them a home: furniture, windows, and even the tiles on the floor. In some cases, the regime forces filmed these acts of looting and humiliation before burning the buildings down. The goal was to erase the memory of the people who lived there. When the regime passed new laws to "rebuild" these areas, they often forced original owners out permanently, replacing their neighborhoods with luxury developments that the original residents could never afford. In other areas, different armed groups took control and created their own rules, confiscating land from those they considered enemies and giving it to their own fighters or supporters.
Now that the regime has fallen, the people trying to return face a new kind of chaos. The official system for recording property is barely functioning, and the records that remain are often incomplete or destroyed. In the city of Douma, for example, the land registry office is trying to operate again, but it is understaffed and still relies on handwritten registers that are over a century old. The researchers found that many returnees cannot simply walk up to a government office and get their homes back. Instead, they are forced to rely on local intermediaries, such as village elders or community committees, to mediate disputes. These local leaders often use witness testimony and signed agreements to settle who gets to live where, because the official courts are not yet ready to handle the flood of cases.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that some homes are now occupied by people who have no legal claim to them, while others are held by foreign militias who arrived during the war and never left. In some cases, properties were sold during the conflict using fake documents, creating a tangled web of claims where the original owner and a new "good faith" buyer both believe they have a right to the same house. The new transitional government has tried to pause all property sales to prevent further fraud, but this has also frozen the ability of people to legally transfer or sell their homes, leaving many in a state of limbo.
The researchers argue that solving this crisis cannot be done just by rebuilding the physical houses. The social fabric of these neighborhoods has been torn apart, and the trust between neighbors has been broken. For a home to truly be a home again, the social relationships that once held the community together must be rebuilt alongside the bricks and mortar. The study shows that while people are finding creative ways to navigate this uncertainty, using local customs and informal agreements to survive, the lack of a clear, fair legal system poses a serious risk. Without a reliable way to verify who owns what and to resolve disputes, the return of displaced people could lead to new conflicts, inequality, and a failure to truly heal the wounds of the past. The path forward requires acknowledging that the rules of the past are gone, and that a new, inclusive system must be built to recognize the complex reality of how people actually lived, lost, and now hope to return.
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