World War II and subsequent historical circumstances brought about a disruption of the rights to access and exploit the assets of the previously established endowments and funds. During the war, all financial assets were confiscated. The postwar period brought about a new ideology which proclaimed a radical showdown with and a break with the past thus drastically devaluing all endowment assets. The new state administration did not spare in the least the oldest existing institution of higher learning in Serbia. The act of ratification of the law of expropriation marked the beginning of confiscation and takeover of all assets and funds of the endowments. This was to go on for the next half century. Thereby, the greatest part of the funds and endowments of the University of Belgrade was depleted of all assets and in fact made invalid. Furthermore, some of the endowments were placed under direct control and used by the state authorities without any financial reimbursment. Flats and living spaces belonging to the endowments and funds were given over, free of any charge, to priviliged individuals while commercial space was put under lease and the finances thus acquired used for purposes other than those stipulated by the foundation documents. In time, the once nationalized assets were also sold to private customers.

Despite such systemmatic abuse and confiscation on the part of the postwar state institutions, an awareness of the significance of donated endowments and funds was never lost in our society. Towards the close of the past century, an initiative was made to register all assets that individual donors or institutions had bequeathed to the University of Belgrade. As a result of that troublesome process, and based on documents issued by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia in 1995 and 1996 which made it legally possible for the endowments to resume their activities, the University regained its right to manage its endowments and funds, albeit only thirteen in number.

Four new foundations have been established. In 2020, after the will and testament of the late dr Aleksandar Koturović an endowment bearing his name has been founded. The University was thereby made the recipient and proprietor of two apartments in Belgrade. Today, unfortunately, university endowments and funds are loosing irreversibly their assets through acts of acquisition of previously confiscated living quarters that had once been their integral part. This has been enabled by rejections of restitution appeals.

The University of Belgrade is still adamant in its attempt to retrieve the assets it had been stripped of and return them to the original endowments and funds, as attested also by the Initiative for the Resolution of Status of Property Taken from National Institutions and Endowments under Their Auspeices, submitted in June 2019 by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and the Arts, Matica srpska, and the University of Belgrade to the President of the Republic of Serbia, the Government of the Republic of Serbia, Ministry of Finance, and Ministry of Justice, requiring the drawing and ratification of a lex specialis regarding the Law on restitution of confiscated assets and reimbursement. So far, the responsible state institutions have remained silent in this matter.