هذا التقرير متاح أيضًا بـ العربية
After years of displacement in Lebanon, Umm Mohammad returned with her family to her hometown of Binnish in eastern rural Idlib. But with many families returning and few homes available, she struggled to find somewhere to rent. After searching for several months, she found a home in the neighbouring town of al-Foua, paying its previous occupant $2,000 under an arrangement known locally as “faragha.”
The man who received the money did not own the house. He had been living there after being displaced from rural Damascus during the years of the revolution and was preparing to return to his hometown after the fall of the former regime in December 2024.
Umm Mohammad signed no contract with him and received no receipt or other document proving she had paid. She did, however, sign a rental contract at an estate agency stipulating a monthly rent of $15 payable “to the state,” she told NoonPost.
Umm Mohammad, who asked for her full name to be withheld for fear of losing the house, now has a rental contract alongside a separate verbal financial agreement with someone who does not own the property.
Her case reflects the changes in al-Foua, in rural Idlib, since its original residents were evacuated in 2018 under the “Four Towns” agreement, implemented in stages from 2017. The deal involved the displacement of opposition fighters and their families from Madaya and Zabadani in rural Damascus in exchange for the evacuation of al-Foua and Kafriya, which was completed in July 2018.
After residents left al-Foua and Kafriya, their homes came under the supervision of the military factions controlling the area at the time, according to media reports. These included Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and Ahrar al-Sham, which divided the two towns into sectors. Offices linked to the factions, including what was known as the “spoils office.”, managed occupancy of the homes.
Over time, bodies affiliated with Syria’s Salvation Government intervened to regulate housing and property in al-Foua. The government, which at the time represented the civilian wing of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, asked displaced residents living in the town to visit its General Directorate of Real Estate office to review new housing procedures. These allowed displaced families to live in homes under occupancy arrangements and rental contracts, in some cases for nominal fees.
After the regime fell, displaced people began returning to their hometowns, while original property owners from al-Foua began taking steps to reclaim or sell their properties through lawyers or legal representatives. Current occupants now face the possibility of losing their homes despite the money they paid to secure them or spent furnishing them.
How have faragha payments changed?
Umm Mohammad said faragha payments had changed as displaced people returned to their hometowns and demand for housing rose. Payments initially ranged from $200 to $400, later rising to around $2,000. They now range from $2,000 to $10,000, depending on the amount demanded in each case.
She also said some occupants divide a house into two or more sections, then relinquish occupancy of each to a different person, allowing them to collect larger sums before returning to their hometowns.
Some former occupants use this money to repair their original homes and make them ready to live in after returning. For new occupants, faragha is an additional cost of securing housing, on top of any monthly rent or lease agreement governing their stay.
Paying faragha does not mean buying the house or acquiring ownership. The absence of contracts and receipts in some cases also makes it harder to prove the terms of financial agreements when disputes arise.
Umm Mohammad says she does not know when the house she lives in might be sold or when its original owner might appear and demand it back. She fears being forced to leave without recovering her faragha payment, especially since, as she puts it, the payment gives her only a temporary right to housing.
Her fears grew after she saw neighbours who had lived in a house in the town for years leave after it was sold through a lawyer and the new owner demanded that they vacate it.
According to her account, the neighbours initially refused to leave, citing “their revolutionary stance and the suffering of their displacement because of their opposition to the former regime,” before eventually leaving for a destination she does not know.
Ownership, possession and the right to housing
Such cases involve overlapping ownership rights and raise legal and humanitarian problems, particularly when several parties are involved: the original owner who left under the agreement, the displaced person who lived in the home for years, the new tenant who paid that person to relinquish occupancy, and a new buyer who acquired the property through a contract or legal power of attorney.
The issue is further complicated by continuing tensions between al-Foua and neighbouring villages. These are rooted in the positions taken by al-Foua’s residents during the revolution, their fighting alongside the former regime, and the town’s transformation into a military base for militias loyal to it.
This history has shaped attitudes in neighbouring villages towards the return of al-Foua’s residents, particularly in Binnish. Residents there issued statements rejecting their return, dealings with them or the purchase of homes from them. Political and social disputes have thus become intertwined with disputes over homes. Efforts to resolve property disputes are now also tied to residents’ fears and attitudes towards return, alongside the legal rights of owners and occupants.
Legal expert Salah al-Din al-Dabbagh explained that the central legal problem is that war and displacement have separated ownership, possession and residence: one person legally owns a property while another has lived in it for years.
In principle, this does not mean that one right cancels out another. Ownership remains with the owner unless it is legally transferred to another person and registered through the proper procedures. It does not lapse simply because the owner left the area because of war or remained away for years.
The prolonged absence or displacement of al-Foua’s residents therefore does not, in itself, mean they have lost ownership of their properties. Equally, a displaced person who moved into a house because of wartime circumstances or displacement arrangements does not become its owner simply by living there for many years. Residence and possession are distinct from ownership.
Possession may have legal consequences in some circumstances, but it does not automatically transfer ownership, particularly when ownership is established and registered in another person’s name.
Al-Dabbagh told NoonPost that three issues must be distinguished in such cases: ownership of the property, possession of it and a person’s right to housing. An owner may own a property without being there, while an occupant may possess it without owning it. A displaced person may also have a right to protection from arbitrary eviction because of the circumstances of war and displacement.
He said it was legally incorrect to claim that an owner can forcibly remove an occupant simply because they own the property. Ownership gives the owner the right to claim and recover the property through legal means, but not to carry out an eviction themselves or use force outside legal procedures.
Conversely, protecting an occupant from arbitrary eviction does not make them an owner or extinguish the original owner’s rights. It means that occupancy must be ended through fair legal procedures that take account of the circumstances of people who may lose their homes because of conflict and displacement.
Al-Dabbagh said international human rights law and international humanitarian law were important in this context because displaced people do not lose their housing or property rights through displacement. Likewise, return or recovery of ownership should not lead to forcible evictions or leave people homeless when legal and humanitarian means are available to address the situation.
The law needs to balance property rights, the right to housing and the protection of displaced people, he explained. Long-term residence is not a legally sound basis for automatically acquiring ownership, just as ownership is not a legally sound justification for immediate forcible eviction.
Where returning a property would leave a displaced family without shelter, he said, the legal and humanitarian response should consider an appropriate grace period, alternative housing, compensation or transitional arrangements, depending on the circumstances of each case, rather than allowing the recovery of property to result in further displacement.
The complications of faragha
Al-Dabbagh said the situation was more complicated for people who had paid other displaced people to leave the homes they occupied. In principle, someone who does not own a property cannot transfer ownership merely through an agreement with another person. Paying money therefore does not make a buyer the owner if the seller had no right to dispose of the property in the first place.
The person who paid may have the right to seek recovery of the money or obtain compensation, depending on the nature of the agreement, the circumstances of the payment and whether the parties acted in good faith, he said. But that right is distinct from ownership, and the two should not be confused.
For al-Foua’s residents who left under displacement agreements, departure alone does not legally amount to relinquishing ownership, al-Dabbagh explained, unless they validly waived their rights separately from the act of displacement.
Ownership must therefore be examined on the basis of title deeds, contracts, records, powers of attorney and agreements, rather than simply whether someone left the area.
He added that if a displacement agreement did include a commitment to provide alternative housing, and that commitment was not fulfilled, a separate legal issue may arise. This could concern enforcing the obligation, compensation or addressing the consequences of failing to fulfil it, depending on the nature of the agreement, who made the commitment and the supporting evidence.
But he stressed that failure to fulfil a promise of alternative housing does not automatically transfer ownership of the homes left behind to their current occupants.
Al-Dabbagh said that if an original owner sold a property through a valid power of attorney that met the necessary conditions, the sale may have legal effect, depending on the validity of the power of attorney, the contract and the registration. Even then, the validity of the sale must be distinguished from the eviction of occupants: a sale does not give the buyer the right to remove them forcibly.
He stressed the need to distinguish between the original owner, an occupant who moved in because of displacement, someone who bought the property or paid money to another occupant, and someone holding power of attorney for the owner. Each has a different legal position and cannot be treated in the same way.
A collective mechanism for property disputes
Al-Dabbagh said the large number of such cases made it impractical to treat each house as a separate case. The problem is collective in origin and tied to displacement, forced migration, population exchange and war.
The best legal solution therefore requires a collective mechanism to draw up an inventory of properties, identify original owners, document occupants’ status and review sales and agreements to relinquish occupancy made during the conflict.
He said a collective solution could begin by identifying all disputed properties, confirming ownership through documents and records, establishing the basis for each occupant’s presence, and reviewing wartime sales and agreements to relinquish occupancy. Cases could then be classified into those with clear ownership, temporary occupancy, sales by non-owners, and those involving a special agreement or undertaking. This would be followed by common procedures for recovering properties and carrying out evictions, with housing solutions for people who would otherwise be left homeless.
According to al-Dabbagh, resolving these cases must combine the recovery of property rights with the protection of housing and the prevention of homelessness and repeated displacement. The original owner’s rights must not be extinguished, nor should a displaced person be considered an owner simply because they have lived in a property for years. At the same time, that person should not be treated as someone who can be removed immediately without protection.
What is needed, al-Dabbagh said, is to address ownership, housing and displacement as interconnected legal issues, while recognising that they do not constitute a single right.