Buying property in Turkey in a child's name

Buying property in Turkey in a child's name is a change of legal regime, not a formality, because the minor becomes the outright owner on the day the title deed is signed and the parent keeps only the powers Turkish statute lists. Turkish registry practice sets no minimum age for that owner, so a newborn can hold a deed, but both parents have to sign while the marriage lasts and a divorced parent needs the court decision that gave them the child. Whether the family can sell before the child turns 18 rests on one sentence written into the official deed, stating that the transaction falls outside articles 327 and 356 of the Civil Code, which govern spending a child's own assets on that child's upbringing. With that sentence present no judge is involved, and without it court permission becomes mandatory. Three acts are closed off completely and no court order reopens them, since a parent cannot gift, endow or pledge a minor's property, which also means a flat registered on one child cannot later be moved to a sibling. The arrangement buys nothing on the immigration side, because the 400,000 US dollar citizenship threshold has to sit in the applicant's own name, and the property-based residence permit belongs to the owner while family permits run from a sponsor down to a spouse and children rather than up to a parent. On cost the child's-name route pays the 2% buyer's deed fee once, gifting later adds a fee of 68.31 per mille on the registered value plus transfer tax at half rates, and inheriting later brings transfer tax above a 2,907,136 lira per-child exemption for 2026 together with a clearance certificate that blocks any onward sale until the tax is paid.

Can a foreigner buy property in Turkey in a child's name?

Yes, and the Turkish land registry applies no minimum age at all. A newborn can appear in the mülkiyet (ownership) column of a tapu (title deed) on the day the deed is issued, and a foreign child is treated the same way a Turkish child is. What changes is not whether the purchase can happen. What changes is who the owner is afterwards and what that owner's parents are allowed to do.

The child becomes the owner outright. The parent becomes something narrower: a legal representative whose powers are listed in statute. Article 342 of the Turkish Civil Code (Türk Medeni Kanunu, law 4721) puts it plainly in its first paragraph, that mothers and fathers are the legal representatives of their children towards third parties within the scope of their velayet. The deed is signed velayeten, meaning the parent signs in the child's place, and the parent's own name never enters the ownership column.

Two Turkish words sit behind the single English word "guardianship", and most English-language pages on this subject pick the wrong one. Velayet is parental authority, which mothers and fathers hold automatically. Vesayet is guardianship, which a court creates by appointing a vasi. The regimes are not interchangeable and the rules that follow differ sharply. Vesayet only enters the picture when velayet is absent: when both parents have died, when a court has removed velayet, or when the mother holds velayet but is herself a minor and velayet has not been given to the father. A married couple buying an apartment in Alanya, a district of Antalya province, for their eight-year-old are inside velayet, not vesayet.

Discernment does not help the child act alone. A minor old enough to understand a transaction still cannot sign a sale or create a mortgage over property registered in their name, because those acts create obligations. The exception runs one way only. A minor may accept something given for nothing, so a grandparent who gifts an apartment to a grandchild is making a transfer the child's side can validly receive.

Who signs at the land registry, and what proves they can

Both parents sign while the marriage lasts. Article 336 of the Civil Code states that parents exercise velayet jointly for as long as the marriage continues, and the land registry reads this literally: the deed is refused when one parent is absent or objects. The father's casting vote that existed under the old Civil Code is gone.

The General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre, the Tapu ve Kadastro Genel Müdürlüğü, sets out who acts in each family situation in its circular 2023/1 on legal representation in title deed transactions. The rules cover the awkward cases, and one of them is regularly summarised wrongly.

That fourth row is the trap. Article 336 says velayet passes to the survivor when a parent dies, and English-language summaries stop there. Circular 2023/1 does not, because the case of a divorced parent who held velayet and then died is different: the surviving parent has to produce a court decision before the registry will let them act. A family that assumes the deed can be sold on the strength of a death certificate discovers the gap at the counter.

A foreign minor also needs paperwork an adult buyer never thinks about. The child needs a birth certificate carrying an apostille and a sworn Turkish translation, a passport, and a Turkish tax number issued in the child's own name, not a parent's. Everything else on the standard document list for a foreign purchase applies unchanged, and the child does not attend. Only the parent signs. Parents who cannot travel can appoint an attorney, though the power of attorney has to carry specific authority for the transaction rather than general wording.

The one sentence in the deed that decides your exit

A single declaration in the resmî senet, the official deed drawn up at the counter, decides whether selling the property later needs a judge. The parent states that the transaction does not fall within articles 327 and 356 of the Civil Code. With that sentence written into the deed and signed by the parent and the buyer, no court permission is sought. Without it, the sale cannot proceed directly and court permission becomes mandatory.

Neither article says what most buyers assume it says. Article 327 makes parents responsible for the costs of a child's care, education and protection, then adds in its second paragraph that parents may spend a set amount out of the child's own assets on that care and education with a judge's permission, where the parents are poor, or the child's particular circumstances demand extraordinary expenditure, or some other unusual reason exists. Article 356 works the same way from the other side: capital payments, compensation and similar entitlements may be partly used for the child's maintenance as ordinary needs require, and where necessity exists for the child's care, upbringing and education, a judge may authorise parents to reach into the child's other assets in amounts the judge sets.

Read together, the gate is about consuming a child's wealth to feed and school that child, not about ordinary asset management. Selling an Alanya apartment and holding the proceeds for the same child is not the situation either article describes. That is why the land registry asks the parent to say so on the record instead of sending every family to court.

The requirement arrived in stages. Circular 2002/7 stated that outside the matters requiring the permission of the vesayet authority under article 342, and outside articles 327 and 356, no judge's permission is sought. Confusion continued, so circular 2014/4, numbered 1756 and dated 11 June 2014, required the point to be written into the official deed itself. Circular 2023/1 carries the rule today.

In practice the wording sits inside the body of the deed alongside the price and the parcel details, in a sentence to the effect that the sale made does not fall within the scope of articles 327 and 356 of the Turkish Civil Code. Where a parent acts through an attorney, circular 2023/1 says the power of attorney need not repeat the phrase. Turkish academic commentary disagrees and argues registry staff should look for it anyway, since a disputed transaction can expose the state to liability. Adding the sentence to the power of attorney costs nothing at the notary and removes an argument later, which makes the safer course obvious even though the circular does not demand it.

Selling before the child turns 18: the rule, the case law, and the counter

Turkish law and Turkish counter practice do not fully agree here, and a family planning an exit should treat that disagreement as the real answer. The dominant line of Court of Cassation authority says no judge's permission is needed. Yargıtay 1st Civil Chamber, in decision 2019/2827 of 18 April 2019 on file 2019/1073, held that article 342 does not require a judge's permission for the sale of a child's assets. Yargıtay 2nd Civil Chamber went further in decision 2017/12079 on file 2016/19351, dated 2 November 2017, holding that asking for a permission the law does not require lacks legal interest, meaning the court will not entertain the application. A 2019 decision of the same chamber, 2019/6208 on file 2019/158, confirmed that outside articles 327 and 356 a judge cannot intervene in transfers of a child's property except where the child's benefit has been disregarded.

Decisions run the other way as well. Yargıtay 14th Civil Chamber, in 2014/2013 on file 2013/16771 dated 17 February 2014, took the minority view. More pointedly, Yargıtay 1st Civil Chamber invalidated a sale in decision 2015/12241 precisely because the necessary permission had not been obtained. A 2026 peer-reviewed study of this exact question, published by Haluk Saruhan in the Journal of Law and Economics Research, sets both lines out and is itself internally divided, stating in one section that permission from the civil court of peace is mandatory and in later sections that it is not required outside articles 327 and 356.

Registry offices have added their own layer. Land registry offices have been recorded asking for court decisions in velayet cases where none is required, a practice serious enough that the General Directorate's own correspondence has addressed it as a source of avoidable harm to citizens.

A split like this produces a procedural instruction, not a legal one. Put the question in writing to the specific tapu müdürlüğü that will handle the transaction, before any deposit changes hands, and keep the answer in the file. Buyers on the other side of the table have their own version of the same step: where the seller is a minor, ask to see whether the deed carries the articles 327 and 356 declaration before the appointment rather than at it. Delays and refusals at the Turkish land registry follow their own documented rules, and a missing declaration is exactly the kind of defect that stops a transfer.

Three things a parent can never do with a child's property

A parent cannot gift the child's property, settle it into a foundation, or pledge it as surety, and a court order does not cure any of the three. Article 342 carries the rules on representation of persons under vesayet across into velayet, apart from the matters needing the vesayet authority's permission, and article 449 states the prohibition directly: acting on behalf of a person under vesayet, standing surety, establishing a foundation and making significant gifts are forbidden.

The word doing the work is "significant". The Civil Code of 2001 narrowed an older blanket ban on gifts to significant ones, a change the article's own justification records. An apartment clears that threshold on any measure, so a parent cannot gift a child's Alanya flat to anyone, including to another of their own children.

Where such a request reaches the counter it is refused on the spot, not adjourned, under article 1016 of the Civil Code and article 26 of the Land Registry Regulation. The refusal is written, reasoned, and recorded.

The consequence is the one families most often fail to anticipate. Registering a property in one child's name closes the door on rebalancing between siblings later by transfer, because the route back out is a gift and gifts of a minor's property are barred until that child turns 18. A parent who buys a 2+1 flat in Mahmutlar, a coastal neighbourhood of the Alanya district, in an elder child's name and later wants to even things up for a younger sibling has no clean instrument for it while the elder child is still 17.

The prohibition runs in one direction only. Property can move towards a child freely. Where a gift to the child is unconditional, circular 2023/1 allows either parent to accept it alone, so a grandparent's transfer does not need both parents at the counter.

When a kayyım has to join: the self-dealing rules

Where a parent stands on both sides of a transaction, a kayyım has to take part and a judge has to approve it. A kayyım is a representative appointed by a court for one specific matter, distinct from a vasi, who has general authority. Article 345 of the Civil Code sets the test: a legal transaction between a child and a mother or father, or between a child and a third party in the interest of the mother and father, may place the child under an obligation only with the participation of a kayyım and the approval of a judge.

Three situations reach that threshold in registry practice. A parent buying the child's property, or mortgaging it to secure the parent's own borrowing, is the clearest. Partition between parent and child is the second, and circular 2023/1 adds a detail that catches families out: where the court decision does not spell out the share and the independent units falling to the child, the registry official cannot complete the transaction even with the decision in hand. The Court of Cassation has also ordered investigation, in decision 2016/7637 of 14 April 2016 on file 2016/4126, into whether a father holding velayet had moved assets inherited by his child into his own estate, with transfer of the child's assets and their income to a kayyım as a possible outcome.

Two neighbouring transactions do not need any of this. A mortgage securing the child's own debt is within the parent's ordinary authority. Converting elbirliği mülkiyeti, joint ownership without defined shares, into paylı mülkiyet, co-ownership with fractional shares recorded on the deed, requires no court permission at all. The distinction between those two forms of shared ownership decides more than most foreign buyers expect, and it is the same distinction that governs buying jointly with a spouse or partner.

What changes when the child owns only a share

A co-owner can transfer their own share without asking the other co-owners, and that stays true when the co-owner is a child. Article 688 of the Civil Code gives each paydaş, each co-owner holding a fractional share, an owner's rights over that share, which can be transferred, pledged, and attached by creditors. Registering the share in a minor's name does not alter any of it. The parent signs velayeten as before, and the articles 327 and 356 declaration still decides whether a judge becomes involved.

English-language pages on minors and Turkish property regularly claim that any transaction touching a minor's share needs court approval together with the consent of every co-owner. The consent half is wrong as a matter of Turkish co-ownership law, and the error has a cost, because it tells a family it is locked in when it is not.

What the other co-owners hold is a pre-emption right, önalım, not a veto. Where a share is sold to someone outside the ownership group, the remaining co-owners can take that sale over on the same terms. Two features of the right changed on 25 December 2025 under law 7571. The outer time limit fell from two years to one, and the price the pre-empting co-owner pays became the market value a judge determines instead of the figure written on the deed. A family holding half of an Oba apartment alongside an unrelated third party can sell that half freely, then, but the buyer takes on a share that stays open to pre-emption for a year.

If the land registry refuses, the appeal runs 15 days and then 15 more

A refused application is refused in writing with reasons, and the clock starts on the day the decision is served. Article 26 of the Land Registry Regulation requires that applications not complying with legislation be refused without delay, with the grounds, the place of appeal and the time limit all stated. There is no pending status in the Turkish land register in which a defective file simply waits.

The route out has two stages of equal length. The applicant appeals to the regional directorate to which the office is attached within 15 days of service, and appeals the regional directorate's decision to the General Directorate within a further 15 days. Missing documents or an unproven power of disposal are the usual grounds where a minor is involved, and both are fixable, but the refusal itself is recorded in the declarations column of the register in the meantime.

Does property in a child's name count towards Turkish citizenship?

No. The 400,000 US dollar property threshold for Turkish citizenship by investment applies per applicant, and the property has to be registered in the applicant's own name and held under a three-year restriction noted on the deed. A parent whose money bought the flat but whose name is not on it holds nothing that counts.

The programme moves dependants downwards, never upwards. A main applicant who meets the threshold brings a spouse and children under 18 into the same file without any further investment. A child who owns property does not carry a parent in the other direction, and a child over 18 needs their own 400,000 US dollars.

The practical effect is that the two goals pull against each other. Parents who want both citizenship and an asset in the child's name are describing two purchases, not one, because the same flat cannot sit in the applicant's name for the immigration file and in the child's name for the inheritance plan.

Does it give the parent a residence permit?

No, and the reason sits in the statute, not in official discretion. The short-term residence permit for property owners is granted under article 31, first paragraph, subparagraph (b) of the Law on Foreigners and International Protection, law 6458, to "those who have immovable property in Turkey". The holder of the right is the owner. Where the owner is a seven-year-old, the parent standing beside them is not within that subparagraph.

The family route does not close the gap either. Article 34 of the same law grants a family residence permit to a sponsor's foreign spouse, to the sponsor's or the spouse's minor foreign child, and to the sponsor's or the spouse's dependent foreign child. Parents are absent from that list. A permit granted through this route cannot in any case exceed the sponsor's own residence permit period.

A family whose only Turkish asset sits in a child's name therefore has no property-based residence route for the adults, and the adults are the ones who need it. Whether the child can pursue a permit in their own right is a separate question that depends on how the migration authority handles an application made through a legal representative, so put it to the provincial directorate of migration management before assuming either answer. The purchase itself never required a residence permit in the first place, for the child or for the parents. A valid passport is enough to buy.

Who declares the rent, and who signs the return

The rental income belongs to the child, and the parent signs the tax return on the child's behalf. Article 10 of the Tax Procedure Law places the duties of minors who are taxpayers on their legal representatives, so the return for an Alanya flat let to tenants is filed and signed by the parent while the child remains the taxpayer of record.

One detail in that duty catches parents out. A legal representative who fails in it cannot recover the resulting penalty from the child, though the right of recourse for the tax itself is preserved. A parent who forgets the March filing season absorbs the penalty personally.

Because the child is a separate taxpayer with a separate tax number, the child's rental income is not added to a parent's declaration, and the child's own exemption and filing thresholds apply to it. How those thresholds work for owners who are not tax resident in Turkey is a question for a Turkish accountant, since residency changes the regime for adults and children alike.

Child's name now, gift later, or inheritance later: what each route costs

Buying directly in the child's name is the only one of the three routes that pays the entry cost once. The purchase is an ordinary sale, taxed as one, and no separate transfer event follows. The alternatives add a second transfer on top of the first, either during the parent's lifetime or after it.

Take a 2+1 apartment in Oba, a neighbourhood in the Alanya district of Antalya province, bought at 150,000 euros. At the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey buying rate of 56.0159 lira to the euro on 21 August 2026, that is 8,402,385 lira. For a foreign buyer the figure entered in the deed is the lira amount recorded on the döviz alım belgesi, the foreign currency purchase certificate issued when the funds are converted, so the declared price and the exchanged amount track each other.

The gift column carries two details that change how it reads. The rate for gifting real estate is 68.31 per mille under item 4 of tariff 4 of the Fees Law, set by a Council of Ministers decision of 24 December 2012 with effect from 1 January 2013, and it is collected from the person receiving the gift. That is roughly three and a half times the 2% a buyer pays on a purchase. It is charged on the registered value, not the price agreed, so the lira figure lands below what the ratio alone suggests. There is no family discount on the fee itself. The discount sits on the tax side: gifts from a parent, spouse or child are taxed at half the rates set for gratuitous transfers, under a rule the Revenue Administration states plainly.

Those gratuitous transfer rates start at 10% and rise to 30% across five bands, against 1% to 10% for inheritance, under the 2026 tariff published in general communiqué 57 in the Official Gazette of 31 December 2025. The 2026 exemption for gratuitous transfers is 66,935 lira, against 2,907,136 lira per child for inheritance, which is roughly 51,900 euros at the same 21 August 2026 rate. Real estate is valued for this tax on its assessed value, not its sale price, so the precise bill turns on a figure the municipality holds and the family never sees on the contract.

The inheritance column has a timing feature that surprises heirs. Under article 19 of the Inheritance and Transfer Tax Law, registration of an inherited property goes ahead without waiting for the tax to be assessed, but the property cannot be transferred on or charged until the tax attaching to it is paid in full, and registry officials cannot complete a transfer without a clearance certificate from the tax office. Registration does not wait. The sale does.

One question has no verified answer and deserves one instead of an assumption. Where a parent's money pays for a property registered directly in a minor's name, whether the transfer of funds from parent to child is itself treated as a gratuitous transfer for inheritance and transfer tax purposes is not something Turkish practice appears to have settled publicly. The deed records a sale and is taxed as a sale. The money movement is a separate question, and a Turkish accountant should answer it in writing for the specific family before the funds move.

The inheritance reason people give, and why it only half works

Putting the flat in a child's name genuinely removes that flat from a future Turkish succession, and it genuinely does not put it beyond the reach of other heirs. Both halves are true, and the second half is the one no English-language page on this subject sets out.

Succession to immovable property located in Turkey is governed by Turkish law regardless of the owner's nationality, under article 20 of the Turkish Private International Law Act. That rule is not open to choice, and Turkish law recognises saklı pay, the reserved share that certain heirs cannot be written out of. Descendants, parents and the surviving spouse hold reserved shares; siblings lost theirs in 2007.

Article 565 of the Civil Code lists the lifetime gratuitous transfers that can be clawed back in the same way as dispositions made by will, and its fourth limb covers transfers a deceased made with the evident purpose of defeating the reserved-share rules. A property funded by a parent and registered on one child can be attacked under that limb by the other reserved-share heirs. The test has teeth on both sides: the intention to injure the reserved share has to be evident, and Turkish doctrine does not presume that intention from the mere fact that a transfer exceeded the disposable portion.

Two different claims can follow, and they end differently. A tenkis claim treats the transfer as valid and reduces only the part that eats into the reserved share. A muris muvazaası claim, brought where a transfer was dressed up as something it was not in order to keep assets from heirs, attacks the whole transaction and can end in cancellation of the deed and re-registration.

That gives a workable decision rule. Risk is low where there is one child and high where there are more, and higher still where children from an earlier marriage exist. A single-child family registering the Alanya flat on that child is doing something no other heir has standing to unwind. A family with three children registering it on the eldest has created a claim the other two can bring after the parent's death.

Each alternative has its own ceiling. A will made in the form recognised by the deceased's own national law is formally valid in Turkey, but it cannot exceed the Turkish reserved share when it comes to Turkish real estate. Splitting the purchase across fractional shares on the deed at the outset is the instrument that does the most work with the least friction, because it fixes the outcome at the moment of purchase rather than leaving it to be argued afterwards. That approach carries its own rules on shares, exit rights and pre-emption.