With the workflow feature you can configure who should be the owner of an issue when it has a specific status. Configure a standard workflow for your issues, so that the current owner will change according to the predefined workflow when the status is changed.
Note: the user can manually override the owner assignment if it isn't appropriate for a specific situation.
You can also configure which statuses are available from a given status. Example: You select Work in progress, On hold and Completed as valid statuses for the Assigned status. Those three will then be the only statuses to change an assigned issue into.
Below is a sample lifecycle for a software bug. It is extremely easy to set up this kind of workflow in VisionProject.