Property issue in Izmir and around during the exchange period

The Turkish-Greek population exchange has been a unique migration movement in history. This forced migration after the Turkish-Greek War has brought many problems. Migrants have faced various challenges for their new life. The Turkish and Greek governments have showed efforts to minimize the problems of the refugees with the decisions they have made. Despite all those efforts it was not possible to solve the problems complete. One of the most important problems is the property issue for people who migrated to Turkey and Greece. The Exchange Treaty places great emphasis on protecting the property rights of immigrants. However, ambiguities in the treaty verdicts and some flaws that happened during the treaty execution made the property problem insoluble. In this study, property issues in İzmir and around the city has been investigated which was a result of the exchange. It was analyzed to what extent the articles related to property rights of Exhange Agreement are applied; the condition of properties left by the refugees in Greece and the properties left by Greeks in İzmir; the property acquisition process of the people who migrated to İzmir and how the emigrants shaped their properties according to their personal life styles. It has been studied to what extent does property handover play a role during the transition from an imperial to a nation-state system.