What should be in a property sales contract in Turkey

A property sales contract in Turkey is one of three separate documents, and which one a buyer signs decides whether its clauses bind anybody. An ordinary written agreement signed in an agency office transfers nothing and usually cannot carry a working forfeiture clause, because article 237 of the Code of Obligations and article 706 of the Civil Code make official form a condition of validity rather than a formality. A notarised promise of sale creates an enforceable claim and can be annotated on the title register, where it holds against a later buyer for five years. Since 1 January 2023 a notary can also draw up the contract of sale itself under article 61/A of the Notary Law and record it in the land registry system, with the 4% title deed transfer fee to pay and no stamp duty. Inside whichever document is used, the property is identified by its ada, parsel and independent unit numbers rather than by its address, and the declared price has a legal floor at the municipal tax value, with any shortfall assessed afterwards under article 63 of the Fees Law. For a foreign buyer the figure that reaches the deed is the Turkish lira amount shown on the currency purchase certificate, which settles the declared price question before anybody raises it. Whether a euro price clause is lawful at all turns on where each party is resident rather than on which passport they carry.

Three different documents get called "the sales contract"

Turkish practice puts three separate documents behind the words "sales contract", and they carry different legal weight. The document you are handed in an Alanya agency office is usually the weakest of the three, and the clause list inside it is worth exactly as much as the document that carries it.

The first document is an ordinary written agreement, signed by buyer and seller with an agent as witness. The second is a taşınmaz satış vaadi sözleşmesi (promise of sale), drawn up by a notary in düzenleme şeklinde form, meaning the notary composes the document rather than merely certifying signatures on a text somebody else wrote. The third is a taşınmaz satış sözleşmesi (contract of sale) drawn up by a notary under article 61/A of the Notary Law, a route that has existed since 1 January 2023 and that most English language material has not caught up with.

Article 61/A entered the Notary Law through Law 7413, which added contracts of sale to the list of notarial business in article 60 and inserted article 61/A itself. Professors Süha Tanrıver and Mehmet Serkan Ergüne, writing in the Ankara University Law Faculty journal in 2023, set out the mechanism: the application is filed through the Union of Turkish Notaries appointment system over the e-Devlet gateway, the notary queries the land register through TAKPAS, and once the parties sign, the notary takes a yevmiye number from TAKBİS and records the contract there, after which the land registry effects registration. The notary's authority is not exclusive. The land registry counter remains open, and a buyer can still do what buyers have always done.

Whether your clauses bind anyone is decided before you read them

A contract that transfers Turkish real estate, or promises to transfer it, is valid only when an official authority draws it up, and an invalid contract carries no clauses at all. The requirement sits in three places at once: article 237 of the Turkish Code of Obligations, article 706 of the Civil Code, and article 26 of the Land Registry Law. Tanrıver and Ergüne describe this official form as a condition of validity rather than a rule of evidence, with nullity as the consequence of ignoring it.

The practical effect surprises buyers in both directions. A forfeiture clause in an ordinary written reservation form generally does not bind the buyer, because the clause falls with the document that carries it. The same logic strips the buyer of the protective clauses, so a seller who takes the money and sells to somebody else has broken a document that never created a claim to the property in the first place. What happens to money already paid under such a document is a separate question, and Turkish law answers it through unjust enrichment rather than through the contract.

Article 61/A did not soften this rule. It added a second authority that can satisfy it, which is why the notary route matters: it turns a document that used to be preparatory into one that carries the transfer.

The parties clause: what has to be on the page about you

A foreign buyer needs a Turkish tax number in hand before the contract is drawn up, not after it. The regulation governing notarial sale contracts, published in the Official Gazette on 11 January 2023, specifies what identity data goes into the document for a party who is not a Turkish citizen: foreign country identity details together with a yabancı kimlik numarası (foreigner identity number) or a potansiyel vergi kimlik numarası (potential tax number), stateless person details where they apply, and the blue card number for blue card holders.

A buyer who has never held a Turkish residence permit has no foreigner identity number, which leaves the potential tax number as the identifier that goes on the page. The Revenue Administration runs an online application channel for it at dijital.gib.gov.tr, asking for name, parents' names, place of birth, country, passport number, an address and a telephone number, with the passport identity page uploaded.

Two further entries belong in the parties clause. Where somebody signs under a power of attorney, the document's date and yevmiye number belong in the contract, because article 504 of the Code of Obligations requires specific authority to transfer real estate and a general power of attorney will not do it. Where the seller is a company, the clause names the person whose signature binds it.

The property clause: the address is not the property

A Turkish property is identified by its register coordinates, not by its street address, and a contract that gives only an address has not identified anything. The regulation lists what identifies the property in a notarial sale contract: the neighbourhood or village, the pafta (sheet), the ada (block) and parsel (plot) numbers, the bağımsız bölüm (independent unit) number where a flat is sold, the surface area, the boundaries, the type of property, and the ownership share where the property is held in shares.

Oba, a neighbourhood in the Alanya district of Antalya province, shows why this matters. A single residential complex there can hold four blocks with identical floor plans, and two flats in different blocks share a street address, a floor number and a layout while carrying different independent unit numbers. A contract naming "the 2+1 apartment on the third floor" describes four flats at once.

The clause also states whether the building holds kat mülkiyeti (full freehold title) or kat irtifakı (construction servitude), the interim title used before a building receives its habitation certificate. Storage rooms and parking spaces are frequently separate independent units with their own numbers, so a buyer who was shown a parking space during the viewing needs its unit number written in alongside the flat's.

The price clause, and the currency question a residence permit can change

Whether a euro denominated price clause is lawful turns on where each party is resident, not on which passport either of them holds. The rulebook is the Decree No. 32 on the Protection of the Value of Turkish Currency and the communiqués issued under it, and its restriction bites on contracts between persons resident in Türkiye. A buyer living in Oslo or Rotterdam is not a resident of Türkiye for that purpose, which is why euro pricing is routine in sales to buyers who fly in for the transaction.

The classification is not permanent. A buyer who later takes a Turkish residence permit can move into the resident category, and the treatment of foreign national buyers under these communiqués was amended as recently as 2024. Anyone signing a foreign currency price clause while holding a Turkish residence permit has a question worth putting to a lawyer in writing, because the answer turns on current communiqué wording rather than on general principle.

One consequence is fixed regardless of the currency in the contract. Where a foreign individual is the buyer, the sale figure recorded in the official deed is the Turkish lira amount shown on the döviz alım belgesi (foreign currency purchase certificate), the document produced when the buyer's foreign currency is sold to the Central Bank through a Turkish bank. The euro figure the parties negotiated survives in the contract; the lira figure that reaches the register comes from the currency conversion.

The price in your contract versus the price written on the deed

The declared value has a legal floor, and declaring below the real price exposes the buyer to a later tax assessment rather than saving money cleanly. Article 63 of the Fees Law sets the base for the title deed transfer fee as the declared transfer price, which cannot fall below the property's emlak vergisi değeri (municipal tax value). The same article provides that where the fee is later found to have been paid on a value below the tax value, or on a declared price that does not reflect reality, the difference is assessed additionally or on an ex officio basis.

The arithmetic is worth doing before anyone suggests it. Take an Alanya apartment agreed at EUR 200,000 where the parties declare EUR 120,000, at the rates in force as of August 2026. The transfer fee runs at 4% of the declared value in total, split by law as 2% from the buyer and 2% from the seller, so understating the price by 40% moves about EUR 1,600 of fee off the buyer's side of the counter. Against that sit three exposures. The difference in fee can be assessed later under article 63. The buyer's acquisition cost on the register is now EUR 80,000 lower, which inflates the taxable gain on any resale inside the five year window in which capital gains are taxed. And a buyer pursuing Turkish citizenship, where the threshold is USD 400,000 per applicant, is measured on the declared figure rather than on the amount actually transferred.

Tanrıver and Ergüne add a point from the notary's side. Notaries collect fees and taxes under article 118 of the Notary Law, a sale price shown below market value causes less fee to be collected, and the authors treat showing the market value in a notarial sale contract as a legal obligation rather than a preference. For a foreign buyer the question largely closes itself, since the deed figure is taken from the currency purchase certificate.

The payment schedule, and what "title passes on final payment" actually does

A clause stating that ownership passes on final payment orders the parties' debts; it does not move ownership. Article 705 of the Civil Code transfers real estate ownership by registration, and no sentence in a private contract substitutes for the register entry. What the clause usefully does is tie the seller's obligation to attend the transfer to the buyer's obligation to pay, so that neither side has to move first on trust.

The schedule works better when each instalment is tied to a verifiable event rather than to a calendar date. A workable structure ties the first payment to signature of the notarial document, the second to a clean result on the governor's office check under article 36 of the Land Registry Law, which examines whether the parcel falls inside a military or security zone, and the balance to the registration appointment itself.

The currency step deserves its own line in the schedule, because it is the point of no return. The Central Bank's implementing instruction on currency sales provides that once the Central Bank has completed its purchase, the sale of currency cannot be abandoned for any reason and the transaction cannot be cancelled, and that banks must tell the parties this beforehand. A buyer whose contract sequences the currency conversion before the clearance result has put the irreversible step ahead of the conditional one.

The annotation clause: the one line that binds the next buyer

The only clause that protects a buyer against the seller selling to somebody else is the one that puts the contract on the title register. A notarised promise of sale can be annotated in the register under article 26 of the Land Registry Law, and annotation converts a purely personal claim into one the buyer can assert against third parties, including a later purchaser. Either party can request the annotation, and the request stands even where the contract does not expressly provide for it. The annotation's effect against third parties runs for five years, during which the beneficiary can bring an action to have title registered in their own name.

Since Law 7413, a party can ask the notary to arrange the annotation through the land registry information system on payment of the fees and charges, without a separate trip to the land registry office. That change turns the annotation from an errand into a line item in the same appointment.

The scenario the clause defends against is ordinary rather than exotic. A seller signs with a buyer in March, receives a better offer in June, and sells to the second buyer. Without an annotation, the first buyer has a claim for damages against the seller and no claim to the flat. With one, the first buyer's right survives the second sale.

Default and penalty clauses, and the ones a judge can rewrite

A penalty clause is enforceable in principle and adjustable in practice, because a Turkish judge may reduce a penalty found excessive. Article 179 of the Code of Obligations lets the parties agree a penalty for breach, and article 182 gives the court power to cut one it considers excessive. A clause stating that the buyer forfeits 20% of the price for any delay in completion is not a self executing rule; it is an opening position that a court can revisit.

Conditions precedent do more useful work than penalties in a Turkish purchase, because the events that stop a transfer are mostly administrative. The governor's office check on military and security zones is carried out parcel by parcel and takes a matter of weeks rather than days, with the timing varying by province. Where the seller inherited the property, article 19 of the Inheritance and Transfer Tax Law bars the transfer until the tax is paid in full and requires a clearance certificate from the tax office. Where municipal property tax is outstanding, article 30 of the Property Tax Law prevents the land registry from carrying out the transfer at all. Each of these is a condition worth writing in, with a stated consequence if it fails, rather than a surprise to be discovered on the day.

What happens to money already paid when a contract falls away is governed by the deposit rules rather than by the penalty clause, and the default position under Turkish law is less punitive than most English language guidance suggests.

What you inherit with the flat: the handover and warranty clause

Unpaid service charges left by the previous owner do not become your personal debt, but they can already be registered as a charge on the flat itself. Article 22 of the Condominium Law, headed "security for common expenses", makes the occupier jointly liable alongside the owner for aidat (service charge) debts, and provides that where the debt still cannot be collected, a statutory mortgage is registered over the defaulting owner's independent unit in favour of the other owners, whose claim ranks with priority. The article says nothing about a later purchaser inheriting the debt personally.

The instruction that follows is concrete. Read the takyidat (encumbrances) list on the register and look for a registered statutory mortgage, because a registered charge travels with the flat while an unregistered arrear does not. Then put a seller warranty in the contract covering unpaid service charges, utility accounts and any management dispute.

The rest of the handover clause covers what a buyer assumes is included and often is not. DASK (Doğal Afet Sigortaları Kurumu), the compulsory earthquake insurance scheme, has to be in place before a transfer completes. Electricity and water accounts are transferred rather than inherited, and a seller who leaves them open leaves the deposits with them. Furniture, white goods and air conditioning units belong in an inventory annexed to the contract, listed item by item, since a fitted kitchen and a freestanding fridge are treated differently by everybody except the person who photographed them. Where a tenant is in occupation, the existing lease and the tenant's deposit pass to the new owner, and both belong in the annex.

Two dates also belong in the clause, because they are rarely the same date. Registration happens at the counter, while handover of keys can fall days or weeks either side of it, and a seller who is still packing on registration day is a common enough situation to plan for. Name the handover date separately from the registration date, and state who carries the service charges, utility bills and insurance in the gap between them.

Language, governing law, and where you would actually sue

A foreign law clause does not displace Turkish law or Turkish courts on questions concerning the property itself. Disputes over ownership and other rights in rem in Turkish real estate are governed by Turkish law as the law of the place where the property lies, and Turkish courts hear them. Contractual obligations between the parties leave more room for party choice, and the boundary between the two is a question for a lawyer rather than for a template.

The language question is settled by the counter. The official document is in Turkish, and where a party does not speak Turkish a sworn interpreter takes part and signs the document alongside the parties. A bilingual contract is still worth having, with a clause naming which text governs, but the buyer should know that the governing text is the Turkish one and that the person translating it is a signatory to the transaction rather than a bystander.

Off-plan: the contract the regulation writes for you

In a pre-sale purchase from a developer, the consumer legislation writes most of the contract, and the parties cannot negotiate those terms downward. The Ministry of Trade's consumer guidance sets out the framework: the sale must be made by a promise of sale drawn up by a notary in düzenleme şeklinde form, the buyer has 14 days to withdraw without reason or penalty, and a further right to walk away without reason for up to 24 months, against compensation capped at 2% of the price in the first three months, 4% from three to six months, 6% from six to twelve months and 8% from twelve to twenty four months. Legal delivery cannot exceed 48 months from the contract date, and projects of 30 units or more require building completion insurance or an equivalent guarantee.

A resale purchase from a private owner sits outside this regime entirely, which is why the same clause can be mandatory in one purchase and absent from the next.

What the correct version costs

Moving the paperwork onto a document that actually binds costs less than most buyers assume, because the notarial route carries no stamp duty. Article 61/A provides that only the title deed transfer fee under the Fees Law is charged on notarial sale contracts, and exempts those contracts from stamp duty and the associated papers from the valuable papers charge. Separately, Law 6728 of 9 August 2016 set the stamp duty rate at zero for promises of sale drawn up in official form and for pre-paid housing sales contracts under the consumer legislation.

The notary fee has a shape worth knowing even without its current figure. Article 61/A fixes a lower and an upper limit expressed in lira, states that the fee is shown in the tariff, provides that these limits rise each year by the revaluation rate published under the Tax Procedure Law, and adds that the notary may make no claim beyond that fee. A quoted figure that exceeds the tariff, or that adds a separate service charge on top, is outside what the article permits.

There is a second thing the buyer receives for that fee. Article 162 of the Notary Law makes notaries liable for loss arising from drawing up a sale contract, on a strict basis, and Tanrıver and Ergüne describe the liability as primary, meaning the injured party can sue the notary directly rather than proceeding against the State first. The examples they give include a contract signed by a party lacking capacity, a contract defective in form, and a sale carried out on a forged power of attorney or a forged certificate of inheritance. Claims run to two years from discovery and ten years from the act.

One limit applies to every version of the document. Contracts of sale cannot be completed electronically through the notaries' information system, because the parties' declarations must be taken in the notary's presence, so either the buyer or a properly authorised representative signs in wet ink in the room. A notary abroad cannot draw up the contract at all, since the document is prepared and recorded through the Turkish land registry information system.