Arda Şardağ

Arda Şardağ is a Turkish attorney based in Istanbul, registered with the Istanbul Bar Association under number 70004. He advises international investors and families on acquiring Turkish real estate, obtaining Turkish citizenship by investment, establishing Turkish tax residency, and the estate planning consequences of holding assets in Türkiye.

He has personally run investor files across every qualifying route — real estate, bank deposit, investment fund participation, government bonds and private pension — including files complicated by prior immigration restrictions, identity documents issued in more than one jurisdiction, and source-of-funds histories spanning several countries. He works in Turkish and English.

Practice

Foreign buyers of Turkish real estate

Acting for the buyer alone: title and encumbrance verification, seller authority, occupancy and zoning records, urban transformation status, contract and deposit terms, valuation, currency conversion, and Land Registry transfer. The firm works the central Istanbul resale market rather than off-plan developer stock, for reasons set out on our guide to buying property in Türkiye.

Turkish citizenship by investment

Route selection, source-of-funds files, valuation strategy, certificate of conformity, investor residence permits, and the citizenship application through to decree. Where the objective is the passport rather than the asset, he will say when the deposit route is the better answer.

Tax residency and structuring

The twenty-year exemption on foreign-source income introduced by Law No. 7582, the three-year non-residence test that gates it, and how it interacts with a client's home jurisdiction — including the cases where it delivers very little, such as US citizens.

Cross-border estate planning

Turkish wills for foreign owners, forced heirship, and coordination with planning done elsewhere.

Writing and industry engagement

He writes on Turkish investment migration as a practitioner rather than a commentator, and has been cited as a source on Turkish tax and citizenship developments by the industry press. The firm acts as Turkish counsel for a number of international advisory practices and attends the sector's principal conferences.

Selected guides

• Buying property in Turkey as a foreigner — complete guide
• Turkish citizenship by investment
• Türkiye's 20-year exemption on foreign income
• Opening a bank account in Türkiye as a foreigner
• Turkish bank accounts for US citizens
• Turkish residence permits
• Real estate lawyer for foreign buyers