So a lot of Phnom Penh landowners were ordered to leave the city and become farmers while some entire families were brought to the killing fields.

No doubt some of them owned nice buildings in the city that still exist today.

Who owns those buildings now and how did they end up with them?

The question is really much larger than a couple of buildings, there had to have been a huge land re-distribution country wide.

Does anyone know how that was all resolved?

That has been a huge problem that in many cases is still ongoing, for the reasons you mentioned. John Bingham could give a more elaborated answer, I'm sure.

i 'own' a chunk of riverside around the palace
lol

Phnom Penh was a lot smaller then. A lot of what is Phnom Penh now, was rice fields then. The old part of Phnom Penh was already there. A lot of Phnom Penh then was wooden houses, like old village houses now, but many had thatched roofs. There were tile roofs, but few iron roofs then. The old wooden houses are almost all gone. The brick buildings in the old part of Phnom Penh make up only a very small proportion of the buildings that exist now. Probably 98% of buildings in Phnom Penh now, had not been built then.

So the question really is: Who owned the 2% of buildings that were built before the Pol Pot time, and who owned the rice fields that are now part of Phnom Penh.

When people returned to Phnom Penh and other parts of Cambodia during the war, many returned to the houses they owned before the war. When some people returned, other people were already living in the houses they owned before the war, so they moved into other houses that had not yet been occupied.

The war went on for many years. People returned to Phnom Penh and other places, while the war continued in other parts of the country.

The war was won by telling people on the other side, if they cross over to this side, they will be given money to return to their homes, and they will never be prosecuted for war crimes. The war was won by people crossing to this side.

People continued coming to Phnom Penh, and there were a lot of squatters, who set up makeshift houses on any land. As people got more money, some of the cheap squatter's houses were replaced by more expensive houses.

Someone else might be clear on the law. But isn't it, if someone occupies a place for more than 10 years they own it?

During the war, people still needed to make money to live, so shops and businesses and selling from the street was ongoing. People continued to grow rice, and other crops where they could. There was a lot of killing for the sake of getting money. For example, a truck would come from Sihanoukville with a load of products to sell in Phnom Penh. Someone would murder the driver, and take everything to sell themself. In some places, people were killed and their land was taken by the murderers.

There has been a lot of confiscation of land since that time. Powerful people come in and burn down villages and take the land. The poor people just have to go.

There were no buildings erected in Pol Pots time. The buildings in the city were erected from the early 1900s on. There was a building boom in the 50s when Cambodia was prosperous.
After the war people returned to Phnom Penh, although many were killed because they were the middle class and business owners. So most property was acquired by squatters. I know of Cambodians who kick themselves for grabbing a building in an area where prices didn’t escalate as much as the riverside, BKK1 or anything east of Norodom. I lived in a modern villa in St 57 near the BKK market on a big block of land with an old wooden house. They paid two taels of gold for that after the war. I think that was about $12,000 at the time.
There were families who returned and found that their house was occupied and they never got it back. A mate told me that in 1998 most of the properties in Daun Penh were in complete darkness at night with no one living there.
Is that old cinema in Daun Penh still occupied by squatters in shacks and bats? That’s the most horrifying place I ever saw in Cambodia

willyhilly wrote: ↑Sun Aug 30, 2020 7:35 am A mate told me that in 1998 most of the properties in Daun Penh were in complete darkness at night with no one living there.

Not true. They occupied buildings before they set up make shift squatters shacks.

There has been a lot of dishonesty/corruption with ownership of land.

There was land in Sihanoukville where 2 different people had genuine titles to the same land. Someone who was able to provide genuine titles scammed one of them many years earlier.

Some people would clear a section of forest, build a small house and sell it. Then do the same thing again.

There was a military post set up in Sihanoukville, beyond Otres 2, to stop people squatting on land.

There was an NGO who would buy land and build houses for poor people. A condition was they had to live there for 5 years. Some people would take the houses, then sell them. But they had an arrangement with the new owners to tell them when the NGO would visit, so they could be there and make believe they lived there.

They flooded Boeng Kak as people refused to move out. When they did, some people had genuine titles, and others were only squatters. Only those with genuine titles got compensation.

Before Pol Pot's time, Boeng Kak had no buildings near the water. It was a nice place to go for a recreational walk. Kind of like botanic gardens, but not that fancy. As the places near the city were occupied, squatters over ran the area, and reduced it to a squatter's slum.

There was a lot of squatter's slums along the railway line. Eventually the makeshift houses get replaced with nicer houses.

During the war, land was sold for very cheap prices, like a few hundred dollars. So in the early days, the land that became Phnom Penh was bought at very cheap prices.

The obvious question is, why didn't people buy a lot of land then? A lot of people did buy land then. But many were very poor. A lot of people who had a job were earning $30 per month. Many of the people who became rich, were people who had relatives in a Western country who sent them money. Those who bought land with it, made a lot of money. But also, nobody knew what would happen in the future. The war went on for many years. If the war continued, land prices would remain cheap.

That's very interesting and helpful, thank you for the responses.

It's hard to imagine someone claiming they own an apartment building when they don't.
But I have seen that happen in the Philippines.
A development company went broke halfway through construction and abandoned a 20 story highrise.
Squatters eventually moved in and one of them ending up being the leader who went on to call it his building and charges rent, provides security and supplies makeshift electrical and water.

It's a hell of a sight in downtown Manila.
Squatter slums all over Philippines and they do have some sort of land ownership rights after 10 years or so.