"They did not have it."

To me it feels really weird to use 'hier, daar, er' as substitutes for 'deze, die, het'. I'd say the first three all refer to place, while the other three are used to point at or name objects (although het can be used in many ways). The only thing I can come up with right now is something like 'deze plek' (this place), because its possible to say 'here' instead of 'this place' and therefore it is also possible to say 'hier' instead of 'deze plek'

I hope that made sense. I can't think of another situation where substitution is possible, but maybe there is. Dutch is my native language, so some of these things may be subconscious