This is the least discussed subject in Turkish investment migration and the one that produces the most avoidable distress. It takes an afternoon to deal with and it is almost never dealt with.
The rule that surprises people
Turkish immovable property is governed by Turkish succession law, regardless of the owner's nationality or where they live. A will made in London, Dubai or New York does not determine who inherits an apartment in Şişli.
Turkish law reserves mandatory shares — the reserved portion — for certain heirs, principally the surviving spouse and the children. Those shares cannot be defeated by a will, whether Turkish or foreign. An owner who intends to leave everything to one child, or to a partner they never married, will find that intention overridden to the extent of the reserved portions.
Movable and immovable are treated differently. Turkish real estate follows Turkish law. Bank accounts, fund units and other movable assets are treated under different conflict rules, which typically point to the law of the deceased's nationality. This means a single Turkish estate can be split between two legal regimes at once — which is exactly the situation that makes an unplanned estate slow and expensive.
What the family actually has to do
Whatever the planning, the mechanics are the same, and they are heavier than most families expect.
- A certificate of inheritance. Obtained from a Turkish notary or court. Where any heir is a foreign national, this normally has to go through the court rather than the notary, which is slower.
- Foreign documents legalised. Death certificate, marriage and birth certificates, identity documents — each apostilled or consular-legalised and translated by a sworn translator. Where names are transliterated differently across documents, the file stalls until that is resolved.
- Inheritance tax declaration. Filed with the Turkish tax authority within statutory deadlines, which run from the date of death and do not wait for the family to organise itself.
- Land Registry transfer. Title passes to the heirs only once the tax position is cleared and the certificate is produced.
None of this is exotic. All of it takes months if nothing was prepared, and it happens while the family is grieving and, frequently, while they are in another country.
Inheritance tax
Turkish inheritance and transfer tax applies on a progressive scale with exemptions that depend on the relationship between the deceased and the heir. It is payable in instalments over a period after the declaration.
There is one point worth knowing for anyone considering Turkish tax residency: alongside the twenty-year exemption on foreign income introduced by Law No. 7582, inheritance and transfer tax on foreign-source assets is reduced to a flat one percent during the exemption period. That does not touch the Turkish apartment, which remains subject to the ordinary regime — but for a family whose wealth is largely outside Türkiye, it is arguably the more consequential half of the reform. See our page on the 20-year exemption.
Does citizenship change the position?
For the property itself, no. Turkish real estate follows Turkish succession law whether the owner is a Turkish citizen or not.
What citizenship does change is everything around it. Heirs who are themselves Turkish citizens deal with a lighter documentary burden, since their own civil status is already recorded in the Turkish registry rather than needing to be proved from abroad with apostilles and translations. For a family that has taken citizenship together, the eventual estate is markedly simpler to administer than for a foreign owner whose heirs have no Turkish records.
What actually solves it
A Turkish will. Short, executed before a Turkish notary, dealing specifically with Turkish assets and coordinated with whatever exists elsewhere. It cannot override the reserved portions, but within the freely disposable part it does exactly what you intend, and it removes most of the procedural difficulty from the family's side.
Coordination with the home-jurisdiction will. The commonest technical failure we see is not the absence of a will but two wills that revoke each other. A standard revocation clause in a later foreign will can cancel an earlier Turkish one without anyone noticing. Both documents need to be drafted knowing the other exists.
Getting the names right, once. Ensure the spelling of every family member matches across passport, title deed and civil records. Discrepancies that are a nuisance during your lifetime become an obstruction after it.
A file the family can find. Title deed, valuation, purchase documents, the Turkish will, and the name of a lawyer in Türkiye who already knows the position. Heirs who arrive with a folder are in a completely different situation from heirs who arrive with a question.
The one thing to take from this page. If you own property in Türkiye and have not made a Turkish will, your estate will be distributed under rules you have not read, and your family will spend months proving things about themselves to a registry in a language they do not speak. The document that prevents this is short and inexpensive. There is no good reason to leave it undone.
We prepare Turkish wills for foreign owners and coordinate them with planning done elsewhere. Ask us about your position, or read our property guide.
Next step
Tell us your nationality and what the account is for.
Those two answers decide which bank to approach and how the application should be presented. We will tell you what is realistic for your profile before you arrange anything at a consulate.
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