Explained: Recovering Extorted Properties Amid Fraud and Other Legal Challenges

Many refugees and forcibly displaced persons, upon returning to their areas, cities, and towns after the fall of the regime, are shocked to find others residing in their homes. In some cases, these current occupants possess documents proving they purchased the properties, but investigations reveal these documents are often forged, including fake ownership records and judicial rulings that are extremely difficult to track down.

In numerous instances in Lattakia and Aleppo, current occupants of these properties claimed they purchased them. Some even possess court rulings affirming their ownership and documents proving they paid for them. Most of these individuals assert they were unaware that those who sold them the properties were not the actual owners and that fraud, forgery, and collusion with false witnesses were used to complete the sales. In some cases, sales were even processed through courts, which validated the transactions and issued rulings transferring ownership to the new “owners,” who had impersonated the original proprietors.

According to lawyer Mohammad Al-Sattouf, several factors have facilitated such fraud, including:

The properties in question are often located in informal settlements, unlicensed buildings in zoned areas, or collectively owned properties with unresolved inheritance disputes. Many of these properties are not listed in the official Land Registry and only appear as undeveloped land, meaning the structures built on them are unrecorded, undivided, and unregistered under their rightful owners’ names. The absence of the rightful property owners, often due to forced displacement or security-related persecution, has made it easier for others to seize these properties by taking possession unlawfully and later selling them while deceiving buyers into believing they are the rightful owners. Additionally, the widespread transfer of property ownership without adhering to proper legal procedures in regime-controlled areas in recent years, coupled with weak accountability and prosecution for fraud and forgery, has exacerbated the issue. This was further compounded by corruption in courts and the Land Registry offices, as well as the influence of Assad’s security forces over the judiciary, which shielded corrupt officials and those who seized properties, many of whom belonged to the security and military apparatus.

For example, in the Masaken Hanano neighbourhood of Aleppo, a real estate agent named Ahmad exploited his knowledge of an old “Arab-style” house jointly owned by several heirs, each with shares in it. Ahmad obtained a copy of the estate inheritance inventory document listing the heirs and then impersonated one of them, named Mustafa. With the assistance of two colluding witnesses, Ahmad signed a sale contract with a buyer unaware of the fraud. Ahmad, posing as Mustafa, along with the two witnesses and the buyer, signed the contract for the entire property.

To complete the fraud, Ahmad enlisted a complicit lawyer to draft a judicial power of attorney on behalf of the buyer to file a lawsuit against the rightful heirs, including Mustafa, to validate the sale in court. The second layer of fraud involved notifying the heirs of the lawsuit at false addresses.

Under the Civil Procedure Law, courts are required to notify defendants to attend proceedings. This can be done personally, through relatives residing with the defendant, or by affixing a notice to the defendant’s residence door. If the defendants are found to be living abroad, they must indicate this in the notification, at which point the court halts the proceedings. Defendants residing abroad can only be notified if their addresses are known.

The court should have verified the validity of the defendants’ addresses and referred the matter to the police for a local investigation into their whereabouts within the country before continuing the lawsuit. Proper notification is a matter of public order, and the court can independently investigate it, as invalid notification renders the proceedings void.

Due to the fake notifications, the rightful heirs were unaware of the lawsuit and thus did not appear in court to either approve or dispute the sale and present their defenses. The third layer of fraud occurred when the complicit lawyer, acting on behalf of the buyer, requested the court to validate the forged sale contract. The court then called for an expert analysis of the fingerprints on the contract to determine their authenticity. The expert report concluded it was impossible to verify the fingerprints’ origin due to the absence of the defendants’ fingerprints in official records for comparison.

Subsequently, the court instructed the buyer’s lawyer to present witnesses to the sale. These witnesses, who were false, testified that the sale occurred in their presence and that one of the heirs had signed the contract in the real estate office. They also claimed that during the signing, there was a video call via WhatsApp with the other heirs, who approved the sale of their shares.

The court relied solely on these testimonies as primary evidence to validate the sale and transfer ownership from the original heirs to the buyer.

In this process, the court violated the law to such an extent that it committed gross professional misconduct by allowing the transfer of property ownership based on the statements of two witnesses without the presence of any owners or proof of their signatures on the contract. The court should have dismissed the lawsuit due to the lack of evidence supporting the validity of the sale.

In such cases, the original property owners and the new buyer can file a criminal lawsuit alleging forgery and fraud against the lawyer and real estate agent, as well as a lawsuit for perjury against the contract witnesses. However, the rightful owner must first prove in court that they were residing abroad, were unaware of the lawsuit due to security persecution or concealment, and did not sign a sale contract or select an address for notification. Upon doing so, the court can invalidate the sale and impose the penalties prescribed under the Penal Code for these crimes, which include imprisonment of up to three years and compensation for damages.

Additionally, affected property owners and new buyers can file a liability lawsuit against the judge who issued the ruling, citing gross professional misconduct in transferring ownership without proper evidence.