Virtually all properties owned by Armenians living in their ancestral homeland in Western Armenia were confiscated and later distributed among the local Muslim population.

[10][14] Once settled, the refugees had to register the land and houses, while other assets that were affixed to the property, such as olive groves and vineyards, were to be allocated amongst them.

[10] According to historian Dickran Kouymjian, the settlement of muhajirs into the lands and properties of deported Armenians implies that local authorities had firsthand knowledge that the deportees were to never return.

[5]While the Tehcir law was being carried out, the Directorate for the Settlement of Tribes and Refugees (Turkish: Iskan-i Asairin Muhacirin Muduriyeti), under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was tasked in June 1915 to deal with the property left behind by deported or killed Armenians.

[19] Although the law was called "Temporary", the provisions within it seemed to aim toward the permanent transformation of the ethnicity of communities from Armenian to Turkish Muslim.

Talaat Pasha justified Ottoman actions by stating that the Armenians were "practically all dead ... and have left no heirs to collect the money.

[44] During the conference in February 1920, the Armenian community presented an additional demand for the restitution of property and assets seized by the Ottoman government.

[15] Thus, on 8 May 1920, the first law promulgated by the newly established parliament was to pardon those charged of massacre and expropriation of property by the Turkish courts-martial of 1919-20.

[13][14] In addition to confiscated property, large sums of money and precious metals belonging to Armenians were also seized and deposited into the treasuries of the Ottoman government or in various German or Austrian banks during the war.

[51] An official memorandum prepared by former British Prime Ministers Stanley Baldwin and H. H. Asquith was sent to then Prime Minister of Great Britain Ramsay MacDonald describing such seizures and deposits: The sum of 5,000,000 Turkish gold pounds (representing about 30.000 kilograms of gold) deposited by the Turkish government at the Reichsbank in Berlin in 1916, and taken over by the Allies after the Armistice, was in large part (perhaps wholly) Armenian money.

After the forced deportation of the Armenians in 1915, their current and deposit accounts were transferred, by government order, to the State Treasury in Constantinople.

[8] In the preparation for possible entry into World War II, the Turkish government introduced a tax, the Varlık Vergisi, which disproportionately targeted Turkey's non-Muslim residents.

743) declared that, "The registration of foundations that are in violation of law, morality, tradition or national interests, or that were established to support a political belief, a certain race or members of a minority will not be approved.

"[66] The new amendment and law code became the basis for a new series of confiscations that significantly obstructed the daily lives of Armenians in Turkey.

[67][68][69][70] As a result, more than 1,400 assets (included churches, schools, residential buildings, hospitals, summer camps, cemeteries, and orphanages) of the Istanbul Armenian community since 1936 were retrospectively classified as illegal acquisitions and seized by the state.

If former owners had died leaving no inheritors, the property was to be transferred to specified governmental agencies such as the Treasury or the Directorate General of Foundations.

[37] Throughout the Republican period, the laws continued to provide a legal basis for the confiscation of additional property that belonged to the deportees.

Though the laws were abolished in 1986, the General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre (Turkish: Tapu ve Kadastro Genel Müdürlüğü) issued an order on 29 June 2001 which effectively transferred all the leftover "abandoned" properties to the government.

[75] Terminology of former legislation and civil codes have not significantly changed since the 1960s and 70s, ultimately subjugating the assets and properties of the Armenian community to further confiscations.

[65] Though terminology has slightly changed, the current civil codes still have enough executive powers to confiscate property under the basis of protecting the "national unity" of the Republic of Turkey.

[77] A permit for the construction of a Syriac church was granted in December 2012, however, it was refused by the Assyrian community since the land used to be a Latin cemetery.

[77] In an attempt by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to comply with European Union standards, the opening up of the Ottoman land registry and deed records to the public were considered.

However, on 26 August 2005, the National Security Committee of the Turkish Armed Forces forbid such attempts by stating: The Ottoman records kept at the Land Register and Cadaster Surveys General Directorate offices must be sealed and not available to the public, as they have the potential to be exploited by alleged genocide claims and property claims against the State Charitable Foundation assets.

[82] After two years of research, the Hrant Dink Foundation published a book, some 400 pages long, describing the current situation of seized assets and properties of the Armenian community.

[71] With the help of government deed and title records, the members of the Hrant Dink foundation have uncovered the title records of all the properties owned by various foundations and have produced the book replete with photographs, charts, maps, and other illustrations which describe the seized properties and assets and its current status.

[71][83][84][85] The Hrant Dink foundation researched confiscations and provided descriptions, photographs and boundary lines on its online interactive mapping resource.

[71][86] The monastery was described in a letter dated 24 June 1913 as a "house with garden and land located at 60 Ortaköy Pişmişoğlu Street (known as Çevirmeci Street today), leased from (icareli) the Sultan Beyazıt Veli Hazretleri Foundation, 9000 zira (approximately 5167 square meters), and previously leased (icareli) from the Ibrahim Pasha Foundation, 1000 zira (approximately 574 squaremeters).

[93] A lawsuit was filed on 20 December 1966 against Istanbul Chamber of the Directorate of Law and the Treasury for unlawfully seizing the land and the building.

[100]The commission to investigate land ownership found the Patriarch's claims groundless, so title remains with the Istanbul municipality and the third party owners.

In February 2011, after the successful acquisition of the Selamet Han, Bedros Sirinoglu, the president of the hospital, vowed to re-acquire all 19 properties.