Your own lawyer, before you pay anything

Foreign nationals have been able to acquire property in Türkiye for many years, and the great majority of purchases complete without incident. The ones that go wrong tend to go wrong for the same handful of reasons, and almost all of them are visible in advance to anyone who reads the right records.

Where are you in the process?

Different starting points need different things from us. Tell us which one you are and the first conversation is already useful.

Who can buy

Most nationalities may acquire residential property in Türkiye. A small number are restricted. There are also limits based on location — property within military or security zones requires clearance, and there are caps on the total area an individual foreign national may hold in a given district. These are checked before an offer is made, not after.

What due diligence actually covers

"We checked the title" can mean anything from a five-minute glance to a proper examination. What it should mean:

1. The registered owner is the person sellingSounds obvious. It is not always the case, particularly where a property has passed through an unregistered inheritance or is being sold under a power of attorney whose scope does not extend that far.
2. Mortgages, liens and injunctionsAny charge recorded against the deed follows the property, not the seller. A mortgage that is not discharged before transfer becomes your problem the moment the deed changes hands.
3. Occupancy permitA building without one may be technically unlawful to occupy, which affects insurance, utilities, resale and any valuation.
4. Zoning and building recordsWhether what is built matches what was permitted. Enclosed balconies, converted lofts and added floors are common and can carry demolition or fine exposure.
5. Urban transformation statusWhether the building is subject to a risk determination or regeneration decision — which changes everything about how long you can expect to hold it.
6. ArrearsOutstanding building dues, property tax and utility debts attaching to the unit.
7. Tenancy positionIf occupied, the terms of the lease, the deposit, and whether vacant possession is actually deliverable. Turkish tenancy law is protective of tenants and removing one is neither quick nor certain.

Off-plan and why we avoid it

We work the resale market in central Istanbul rather than off-plan developer stock, and we are open about the reasoning.

An off-plan unit carries delivery risk you cannot diligence away — the building either completes on time and to specification or it does not. Its price is set by the party selling it, with no independent transaction history to test it against. And at the end of a holding period you are competing to exit against every other investor in the same development, often against the developer's own remaining inventory, which is a difficult market to sell into.

A completed resale unit in a tenanted building has none of those characteristics. You can see what you are buying, price it against comparable sales, and exit into a market of individual buyers rather than a queue.

How a purchase runs

Stage	What happens
Preliminary agreement	Terms, price and timetable recorded. Where a deposit is paid, the conditions for its return are agreed in writing before it moves.
Due diligence	Title, encumbrances, permits, arrears and tenancy examined. This is the stage that decides whether the purchase proceeds.
Tax number and bank account	Both opened in the buyer's name. Required for the transfer and for the currency conversion.
Valuation	An appraisal by a licensed valuation firm. Mandatory for foreign buyers, and decisive where the purchase is intended to support a citizenship application.
Currency conversion	Funds converted through a Turkish bank, with the certificate issued in the buyer's name before transfer.
Land Registry transfer	Both parties attend, in person or by power of attorney. Title passes at the appointment and the new deed is issued the same day.
After completion	Utilities transferred, earthquake insurance arranged, tax registration, and letting or management if required.

Taxes and costs

Beyond the purchase price, budget for title deed transfer duty calculated on the declared value, the valuation report, sworn translation and notarial costs, the revolving fund fee at the Land Registry, and legal fees. Ongoing, there is annual property tax, compulsory earthquake insurance, and building dues.

Letting the property

Rental income from Turkish property is Turkish-source and taxable in Türkiye regardless of where you live, and regardless of the twenty-year exemption on foreign income — that exemption stops at the border. Non-resident landlords have withholding and filing considerations that are worth settling before the first tenancy rather than at the first tax deadline.

Short-term holiday letting is separately regulated and requires a permit, with conditions including consent from other owners in the building. Assuming you can list an apartment on a booking platform because you own it is a common and expensive mistake.

Inheritance

Turkish property is governed by Turkish succession law wherever the owner is domiciled. That includes forced heirship rules reserving mandatory shares for a spouse and children, which cannot be defeated by a will made abroad. Foreign owners frequently assume their home-country will covers their Istanbul apartment. It does not, and the mismatch is discovered by the family at the worst possible moment.

A Turkish will, coordinated with your home-jurisdiction planning, resolves most of this. It is a short document and there is no good reason to leave it undone.

Rental guarantees

A rental guarantee is a contractual undertaking that a fixed sum is paid to the owner for an agreed term regardless of whether the unit is let. For a non-resident owner it converts an uncertain income stream into a predictable one and removes the work of finding and managing tenants.

The question that decides whether a guarantee is worth anything is who is standing behind it. A guarantee from a well-capitalised operator with assets in Türkiye is a real protection. The same words from a special-purpose company set up for one development are close to worthless, because there is nothing to enforce against when the payments stop. Before you rely on a guarantee, establish the identity and financial standing of the guarantor, what security exists, what happens on default, and what the arrangement converts to when the guaranteed term ends.

Guaranteed rent is also frequently priced into the purchase figure. A unit sold at a premium with a guarantee attached may return less overall than the same unit bought at market and let normally. That is an arithmetic question, and it should be answered before signing rather than after.

Buying without coming to Türkiye

The whole transaction can be completed remotely. A power of attorney executed at a Turkish consulate in your own country, or before a Turkish notary if you are here, allows your lawyers to obtain your tax number, open your bank account, execute the purchase, complete the currency conversion and register the title in your name. The banking side is set out in detail on our page on opening a Turkish bank account remotely.

Two points of care. The power of attorney must be drafted for the specific transaction — a general document will often be refused at the Land Registry, and a document drafted too broadly is a risk to you rather than a convenience. And the account opened in your name should remain under your control, with the credentials held by you and not by an intermediary. If anyone proposes otherwise, that is the moment to stop.

Common questions