Returnees Face Legal Battles to Take Back Usurped Properties in Damascus

Returnees to the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp and the nearby Tadhamon neighbourhood south of Damascus face complex problems relating to their property ownership after discovering that their properties had been sold or seized under forged contracts or through security pressure during the years of their absence. 

Networks including brokers, owners of real estate agencies, and sometimes lawyers exploited the circumstances of some displaced people, and the loss of their personal and property documents, and defrauded them in order to strip them of their possessions.

Forgery through missing documents

The Yarmouk camp, now mostly destroyed, had been home mostly to Palestinian refugees, along with a mix of Syrian citizens, all of whom were subjected to two waves of displacement: the first partial one in 2012, and the second comprehensive one in 2018 after Assad regime forces took control of the area.

In April 2025, Khalil returned to his home after years of displacement in Lebanon, only to find another family living in his house on the edge of Yarmouk Camp. 

Khalil, his wife, and son were displaced from the camp in December 2012, fleeing shelling by tanks belonging to Assad regime forces. Their departure was sudden, as the couple left the flat to pick up their son, who was then a student in his final year of secondary school. In that atmosphere charged with terror, the couple took only a small amount of money but Khalil forgot his identity card at home.

Khalil says that after returning to his home in the camp, he confronted the family living there without his knowledge. “The head of the family confirmed to me that he had bought the flat under a final sale contract through one of the property brokers in the area, and he showed me a copy of the contract. That was the shock, as it became clear that the contract had been concluded between the current occupier of the property and the broker acting as my representative,” he said.

Khalil figured that the broker obtained the personal identity card he had left behind, prepared a special power of attorney, and disposed of the house. Khalil said that he learned that the broker fled the camp a short time after the fall of the Assad regime.

To recover his property, Khalil appointed a lawyer, who preferred to consider the current occupier of the property a third party acting “in good faith” who had fallen victim to the broker’s fraud, rather than a usurper of the property. On that basis, the lawyer filed a lawsuit, first to prove the forgery of the power of attorney, and secondly to annul the chain of sales resulting from it.

Forced sale and fabricated accusations

In the nearby Tadhamon neighbourhood, which includes a mix of sects, the violations took the form of outright extortion and threats. 

Samer, who has been displaced since 2012 to the Barzeh Housing area, told The Syria Report about the ordeal he went through to keep his house, which ended with him being forced to sign its sale contract. The house is located in the prefabricated housing area of Tadhamon, which was partially damaged by sniping and shelling. Samer still retains the house’s official papers, including the title deed.

“From the moment I was displaced, my heart remained tied to the walls of my house, which I built through sheer struggle,” Samer said. “I tasted the bitterness of working 18 hours a day to pay monthly rents in Barzeh Housing,” he added.

With the end of the fighting in Tadhamon and Assad regime forces taking control of the neighbourhood in 2018, Samer’s hope of return was renewed, as he claims he had not taken part in any combat activities with any side.

On July 8, 2019, Samer received a phone call that “changed the course of my life completely, as I had been living in hope of an imminent return”. The caller was a property middleman known for his close ties to the security services. “He gave me a choice between agreeing to sell my house for only SYP 7 million, and facing the consequences if I refused,” he said. The prevailing prices for houses in a condition similar to Samer’s ranged at that time between SYP 13 million and SYP 15 million, according to him. 

The broker warned Samer against returning to the neighbourhood and told him that he had become wanted by the security services. When that did not work, the broker threatened Samer that he “would meet his death if he returned to Tadhamon, and no one would know anything about him.” Samer said that the threats went as far as the broker accusing him of financing terrorism, and that if he did not give up his house, he would face security prosecution because of his “dealings with external parties.” After weeks of hesitation, Samer yielded to the broker and sold his house at that price so that he would “not face an unknown fate” if he filed a complaint with the police or brought a case before the court.

After the fall of the Assad regime, Samer consulted a lawyer who told him that, since the sale had taken place under duress, it could be annulled if that were proven. The occurrence of duress can be proven by comparing the price of the house sold with the prevailing values at that time. This pattern of sales is officially documented in the property records, but lacks the element of consent.