This paper examines how tsunami victims in Aceh, Indonesia, have claimed land, on which they had lived until the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami hit Aceh. After the disaster, the local government prohibited people from living in a specific area adjacent to the Ocean while providing compensation to only some of the victims and heirs. In this situation, the dispossessed claimed landownership based on adat or customary law. In Aceh, as well as other parts of Indonesia, plural laws, such as state law, Islamic law, and customary laws, have coexisted. Such a complex socio-legal environment has produced plural justifications and reasoning