One of the many questions that emerged in the newly demarcated and reconstituted country of Poland after the Second World War was how to deal with the property of the murdered Jews and expelled Germans. This article examines the legislative attempts to solve this problem, particularly in the immediate post-war years; it compares them to the often chaotic, opportunistic, inept and overburdened legal practice of the responsible authorities; and then it shows how they are linked to the ownership problems that re-emerged with reprivatization after 1990. This analysis is the first to draw on records from the Head Liquidation Office (Główny Urząd Likwidacyjny) and the Regional Liquidation Office in Wrocław (Okręgowy Urząd Likwidacyjny we Wrocławiu), as well as on memoirs on the subject. With this article, we hope to make a contribution to the sorely neglected domain of legal history research on questions of ownership in Poland during the post-war period in the context of socio-political upheavals, territorial changes and ethnic cleansing and to identify areas for further research.