Types of Title Deed in Turkey: What Kat Mülkiyeti, Kat İrtifakı and Arsa Payı Actually Change

The types of title deed in Turkey are not a ranking of documents from weak to strong, but a description of which register a property sits in and what that register makes of it. The register question resolves into a single sentence of the Condominium Law: each independent unit entered in the condominium register acquires the character of a separate immovable, so an apartment held under kat mülkiyeti is an immovable in its own right, while an apartment held under kat irtifakı is a share of a plot with a unit number noted in the declarations column. Four consequences follow from that distinction and each one costs money, beginning with citizenship, since bare land has been ineligible for citizenship by investment since 12 December 2023, when the regulation was amended to require kat mülkiyeti, kat irtifakı or a building standing on the plot. Utility connections are withheld until the occupancy permit issues, and a deed still reading kat irtifakı is good evidence that no permit covering the whole building exists. A magistrate can end a floor easement where nothing has been built within five years of the approved plan, and the register entry is then deleted. Property tax follows the classification rather than the structure, so an immovable still recorded as arsa is taxed in Alanya at three times the dwelling rate. Arsa payı sits underneath all of it as a permanent number, proportional to value at the moment of allocation, unchangeable afterwards for any later rise or fall, and incapable of being sold, inherited or mortgaged apart from the apartment it belongs to.

How many types of title deed does Turkey actually have?

Turkish law does not grade title deeds from weak to strong, and "type of title deed" is not a category the legislation uses. What varies is the register your property sits in, and the register decides what you own. English-language guides tend to present a ranking, with kat mülkiyeti at the top and everything else below it, but that ranking is an invention of the guides rather than a rule of Turkish property law.

The Kat Mülkiyeti Kanunu (Condominium Law, Law 634) sets out the actual architecture in two articles. Article 11 provides that kat mülkiyeti and kat irtifakı are both registered in the kat mülkiyeti kütüğü, the condominium register, which is kept under the Land Registry Regulation as a separate book from the ordinary tapu kütüğü (land register book). Article 13 then explains what registration in that book does. When a building is converted to kat mülkiyeti, the words "the ownership of this property has been converted to condominium ownership" are written into the ownership column of the parcel's page, and that page is closed to every transaction except easements created for or against the parcel. Each unit moves to its own page in the condominium register.

Article 13 closes with the sentence that settles the whole question. Each independent unit registered in the condominium register acquires the character of a separate immovable, and takes the number given to it in the approved plan. An apartment held under kat mülkiyeti is not a share of a building. It is an immovable in its own right, with its own page.

Kat irtifakı works the other way. Article 14 provides that floor easements over a plot are created by noting, in the beyanlar hanesi (declarations column) of the plot's own register page, the arsa payı (land share) allocated to each independent unit. Once the building is finished according to the approved project, the unit numbers and their annexes are likewise noted in that declarations column. Under kat irtifakı your apartment is therefore not an immovable at all. What you own is a share of a plot of land, and the apartment exists in the register as an entry in a column.

Four situations account for almost every deed a foreign buyer will be shown in Alanya, a district of Antalya province on Turkey's Mediterranean coast.

• Kat mülkiyeti places the unit in the condominium register as a separate immovable.
• Kat irtifakı places a land share in the condominium register, tied to the plot, with the unit noted in the declarations column.
• Arsa or tarla deeds, whether held outright or as a fraction, keep the parcel in the ordinary land register.
• Devremülk is not ownership of a unit at all, but a servitude attached to a co-ownership share.

A buyer shown two deeds in Oba, the neighbourhood east of Alanya centre where roughly a quarter of the district's new stock sits, can settle which of the four applies in one glance at the document, without asking the seller anything.

What does kat mülkiyeti mean on a Turkish title deed?

Kat mülkiyeti is full, separate ownership of a finished apartment, recorded on its own page of the condominium register, and it is the only arrangement under Turkish law in which the apartment itself is an immovable. Article 1 of the Condominium Law restricts it to sections of a completed building that are suitable for separate and independent use, listing flats, offices, shops, cellars and storage rooms among them.

The Condominium Law defines the vocabulary in Article 2, and the definitions matter because they appear on the deed. The whole property is the anagayrimenkul, the main structure alone is the anayapı, and the parts capable of separate use are the bağımsız bölüm (independent unit). A space outside a unit but assigned directly to it is an eklenti (annex). The ownership right over independent units is kat mülkiyeti, and its holder is a kat maliki.

Two restrictions in the law surprise buyers who assume the arrangement is always available. Article 10 provides that kat mülkiyeti cannot be established over only one or a few sections of a property without the whole property being converted. A building goes over entirely or not at all, which is why a seller cannot offer to convert a single flat while the rest of the block stays under kat irtifakı. Article 50 adds that kat mülkiyeti cannot be established in buildings that are not entirely kârgir, meaning of masonry construction.

Consider a resale 2+1 in Tosmur, a neighbourhood immediately east of Oba. If the deed reads kat mülkiyeti, the building has been through the conversion described in Article 13, every unit in it moved to the condominium register at the same time, and the parcel's own page was closed to further dealings. None of that is inferred from the seller's description. It is what the word on the deed means.

What does kat irtifakı mean, and what do you actually own?

Kat irtifakı is a servitude created over a plot of land in favour of units in a building that is unfinished or not yet started, and what the holder owns is an arsa payı rather than an apartment. Article 2 of the Condominium Law is explicit that kat irtifakı is an irtifak hakkı, a servitude, created by the owner or co-owners of the plot. Article 1 adds the purpose, which is to serve as the basis for the kat mülkiyeti that will be reached once the building is complete.

The mechanics in Article 14 explain why the distinction is not academic. Floor easements are created by noting the land share allocated to each unit in the declarations column of the plot's register page, and after completion the unit numbers and annexes are noted in the same column. Registration under kat irtifakı therefore attaches to the plot. The apartment has no page of its own, no separate immovable character, and no plan number in the register until conversion happens.

Article 14 also sets out what has to be filed. The owner or all co-owners submit the architectural project prepared in accordance with Article 12, approved by the competent public authorities with the owners' signatures taken and sent electronically to the land registry directorate, together with a yönetim plânı (management plan). The same article records a detail worth keeping for later, which is that no separate management plan is required at the point of conversion to kat mülkiyeti.

An off-plan buyer in Kestel who signs for a unit in a block still under construction receives a deed that names the plot, states a fraction such as 60/4800, and carries the unit number in the declarations column. That buyer owns 60 four-thousand-eight-hundredths of a parcel of land in Kestel. The apartment is a promise recorded in a column, backed by an approved project.

Kat mülkiyeti vs kat irtifakı: what changes for the buyer

Six things change between the two arrangements, and four of them cost money. The differences follow from the register architecture rather than from any grading of document quality.

The row that most often surprises buyers is the citizenship row, because the two arrangements sit on the same side of that line while bare land sits on the other. The row that most often gets omitted from competitor comparisons is the last one.

A buyer choosing between a finished Mahmutlar resale under kat mülkiyeti and a discounted off-plan unit in the same neighbourhood under kat irtifakı is not choosing between a strong deed and a weak one. The choice is between an immovable that exists and a land share that will become one, with a utility question and a five-year clock attached to the second.

Why does the deed type decide your Turkish citizenship application?

Since 12 December 2023 the deed arrangement is an eligibility condition for citizenship by property investment, and bare land no longer qualifies. The change was made by a regulation published in the Official Gazette of 12 December 2023, issue 32397, under Presidential Decision 7938, amending the Regulation on the Implementation of the Turkish Citizenship Law.

The amendment is a single substitution, and its wording is worth reading closely. In Article 20, second paragraph, subparagraph (b), the phrase "immovable of the foreign currency amount" was replaced by "immovable of the foreign currency amount on which kat mülkiyeti or kat irtifakı has been established, or which is qualified as arsa with a building on it." The regulation entered into force on the date of publication.

Three consequences follow directly from that wording. An apartment under kat mülkiyeti qualifies. An off-plan unit under kat irtifakı also qualifies, which is why the arrangement is common in citizenship files. A plot of arsa or a field held as tarla with nothing built on it does not qualify, and has not qualified since the day the amendment was published.

The threshold amount and the holding condition are governed by separate provisions and are not affected by this wording. The programme threshold stands at 400,000 US dollars, the threshold applies per applicant rather than per property, and the property is held under a three-year restriction on sale noted in the register.

An investor who assembles 400,000 US dollars of value out of two building plots in Gazipaşa, the district neighbouring Alanya to the east, meets the amount and fails the condition. The same investor buying an unfinished apartment under kat irtifakı meets both. Nothing about the plots is defective. They simply fall outside the wording the regulation adopted in December 2023.

Can you get utilities and iskan with a kat irtifakı deed?

A kat irtifakı deed tells you that the building has no occupancy permit covering the whole structure, and the Zoning Law withholds electricity, water and sewerage connections until that permit is issued. Article 3 of the Condominium Law makes the link, providing that kat irtifakı is a species of servitude tied to the land share, and is converted to kat mülkiyeti as of right on the basis of the yapı kullanma izin belgesi (occupancy permit) issued for the whole of the building.

The consequence is in Article 31 of the İmar Kanunu (Zoning Law, Law 3194), which fixes the completion date of a building as the date the occupancy permit is granted, and provides that buildings for which the permit has not been issued or obtained do not benefit from electricity, water and sewerage services or installations until it is. The last sentence of the same article matters as much as the first, because independent units that have obtained the permit do receive those services.

Article 30 of the Zoning Law explains why partial permits exist. Where a building is completely finished the whole of it needs a permit, and where parts of it are usable those parts can be permitted separately. A single site in Kargıcak can therefore hold one block with an occupancy permit and connected utilities, and another block without either.

The right question for a buyer is consequently narrower than the one usually asked. Asking whether the site has iskan produces an answer about the development. Asking whether your specific bağımsız bölüm has an occupancy permit produces an answer about your apartment.

One inference runs safely and its reverse does not. A deed still reading kat irtifakı is good evidence that no permit covering the whole building has been issued, since Article 3 makes conversion follow the permit. The reverse inference fails, because a permit may have been issued without anyone yet requesting conversion, and Article 3 allows conversion to be triggered by a request as well as taking place as of right. Seeing kat irtifakı is a reason to ask, not a proof that no permit exists.

A separate correction belongs here, because the strongest competing article on this topic overstates the position. The restriction attached to kat irtifakı comes from zoning legislation rather than from the Condominium Law, and the sanction the Zoning Law actually specifies is the withholding of utility connections. The Condominium Law contains no prohibition on letting a unit held under kat irtifakı.

Can a kat irtifakı be cancelled if the building is never finished?

Yes, and the mechanism is a court order that deletes the entry from the register. Article 49 of the Condominium Law provides that where no building is constructed within five years on a plot subject to kat irtifakı, according to the plan submitted when the servitude was created, the sulh hâkimi (magistrate) decides on the application of any one of the owners, hearing the interested parties where necessary, either to terminate the floor easement or to extend it for a fixed period. The article adds that the period may be extended again on application, and that when a floor easement is removed under that paragraph the entry in the land register is deleted.

Nothing in the English-language material aimed at foreign buyers covers this provision, which is difficult to justify given that it addresses exactly the scenario off-plan buyers worry about. A developer who takes deposits, registers floor easements, and then stops building leaves every unit holder inside a five-year window defined by statute.

Two limits keep the provision from being more alarming than it is. Termination is not automatic. It requires an application by one of the owners and a decision by the magistrate, who may extend rather than terminate, and may extend more than once. Termination also does not take the buyer's property away. What ends is the floor easement, meaning the allocation of a land share to a designated future apartment. The co-ownership share in the plot itself survives, and the holder remains a co-owner of land in the ordinary sense.

The practical reading for a buyer in Avsallar looking at a project stalled since 2021 is a question about dates rather than about documents. The date the floor easement was registered starts the clock, the approved project defines what should have been built, and a stalled site approaching year five is a site where other unit holders may already be considering an application.

What is arsa payı and why can it not be changed later?

Arsa payı is the co-ownership share of the plot allocated to an independent unit, it must be proportional to the unit's value by location and size, and it cannot be changed afterwards because the unit's value has risen or fallen. Article 2 of the Condominium Law defines it as the co-ownership shares of the land allocated to independent units under the rules the law lays down.

Article 3 carries three separate rules in a single paragraph, and buyers usually meet only the first. Kat mülkiyeti and kat irtifakı are established by clearly showing the land share allocated in the project in proportion to the values of each independent unit calculated according to their location and size. Where shares have not been allocated in proportion, each unit owner or floor easement holder may apply to the court to have the land shares redistributed. And the land share allocated to a unit cannot be altered on account of an increase or decrease occurring later in the value of that unit.

The third rule is what makes the number on the deed a permanent decision. The proportion is fixed at the moment of establishment, against values as they stood then. A ground-floor unit that later gains a commercial frontage keeps its original share. A top-floor unit that loses its sea view to a new block in front keeps its original share too. The only route to a different number is the court application in the second rule, and that application is about disproportion at the time of allocation, not about what happened to values since.

Take two apartments offered in the same Oba block, both 95 square metres, both 2+1. The first deed shows an arsa payı of 45/3000 and the second shows 90/3000. The floor areas are identical and the land shares differ by a factor of two. Whatever the second buyer owns of that plot, the first buyer owns half as much of it, permanently, and no later change in the apartments' values will move either figure. Two deeds that look interchangeable in a listing describe materially different stakes in the land underneath.

Can arsa payı be sold separately from the apartment?

No, and the prohibition is absolute in three directions at once. Article 5 of the Condominium Law provides that where kat mülkiyeti is transferred to another person or passes by inheritance, the land share attached to it passes with it, and that the land share cannot be transferred separately from the kat mülkiyeti or kat irtifakı, nor pass by inheritance separately, nor be encumbered with any other right.

Each of the three limbs closes a different door. The share cannot be sold on its own, so a proposal to buy an apartment while the seller retains the land share underneath it has no legal effect. The share cannot be inherited on its own, so an estate cannot be divided by giving one heir the apartment and another the land. The share cannot be mortgaged or otherwise burdened on its own, so it cannot be used as separate security.

A developer in Çıplaklı who offers to reduce the headline price by retaining part of the land share is describing a transaction Turkish law does not permit. The land share is not a component that can be unbundled from the unit. It travels with it in every direction, by operation of Article 5.

Which property tax rate does your deed arrangement trigger?

The property tax rate follows what the register says the immovable is, not what is standing on it, and the gap between an arsa classification and a residential one is threefold in Alanya. The Emlak Vergisi Kanunu (Property Tax Law, Law 1319) sets the rates in two separate articles, because buildings and land are taxed under different headings.

Article 8 fixes the building tax rate at one per thousand for dwellings and two per thousand for other buildings. Article 18 fixes the land tax rate at one per thousand for arazi, meaning land generally, and three per thousand for arsa, meaning building plots. Both articles then apply the same multiplier, providing that the rates are applied with a 100 per cent increase within the boundaries and adjacent areas of metropolitan municipalities to which Law 5216 applies.

Alanya sits inside the boundaries of Antalya Metropolitan Municipality, so the increased rates are the ones that apply there.

An immovable still classified as arsa is taxed at three times the dwelling rate. That is the position of a plot carrying floor easements where the building has not yet been declared, and it is the reason the classification question is a cost question rather than a filing question.

Two provisions govern the transition and both fall on the owner. Article 33 lists the construction of a new building among the reasons that modify the tax value, and Article 23 requires the declaration to be filed with the municipality where the property is located, within the budget year in which construction ends, or in which each part starts being used where parts are occupied before completion. Article 8 then adds a floor that survives the transition, providing that the tax on a newly constructed building cannot be less than the tax on its plot, or on its land share, and that this applies for four years from the budget year following completion of construction.

Moving from an arsa classification to a dwelling classification therefore does not drop the bill to the dwelling rate straight away. For four budget years the land share's tax sets the minimum. The actual amount payable depends on the tax value assessed by the municipality rather than on the purchase price, which is why the figures worth carrying are the rates and the mechanism.

What is a devremülk deed and is it ownership?

Devremülk is not ownership of a unit, and Turkish law classifies it as a servitude attached to a co-ownership share. Article 57 of the Condominium Law provides that a right to benefit from a building or independent unit suitable for use as a dwelling, during specified periods of the year, may be created in favour of each of its co-owners as a servitude tied to the co-ownership share, and that this right is called devre mülk hakkı, the timeshare right.

Article 58 limits where it can exist, providing that a timeshare right may be created only in properties of residential character that have been converted to kat mülkiyeti or kat irtifakı, or in detached buildings. Article 60 explains how it appears in the register, requiring that the creation of the right be noted in the declarations column of the register pages of the main property, the independent units and the detached buildings, and that it be stated on the title deed issued.

A dated correction belongs here, because the minimum period is widely reported wrongly. Article 59 requires that timeshare rights be divided into specified periods of the year and be no shorter than seven days. The figure was fifteen days until Law 7392 of 24 March 2022 replaced "15" with "7" in that article. Turkish and English sources still repeating fifteen days are working from the pre-2022 text.

Two further provisions decide how a timeshare behaves when it stops being wanted, and both cut against the holder. Article 63 provides that the co-owners of a property subject to a timeshare right cannot demand the dissolution of the co-ownership unless the contract provides otherwise. The ordinary exit from Turkish co-ownership, an action to end the shared holding, is therefore closed by statute. Article 64 governs the end of each period, requiring holders to vacate and hand over to the next holder, and providing that where they do not, on production of the register entry and the contract by another period holder or the manager, the property is cleared immediately by the police on the order of the highest civil administrator of the locality, without any further procedure or notification, and that an application to administrative or judicial bodies does not stop the clearance.

A buyer offered a week in a coastal development near Konaklı as a "title deed" is being offered something real, registered and enforceable. It is a servitude noted in a declarations column, with a statutory floor of seven days, no statutory exit through dissolution, and a summary handover procedure at the end of each period.

What does a hisseli deed change when you read it?

A hisseli deed is not a type of deed but a description of ownership structure, and what it changes is which fraction of the property the named owner can actually transfer. The word describes paylı mülkiyet, shared or fractional ownership, in which the property is held by more than one person in fractions shown in the register, as opposed to müstakil ownership by a single holder.

Reading it is a matter of two fields rather than one. The malik line names the owner. The hisse line states the fraction, and the fraction is what that owner has to sell. A seller holding 1/4 of a Demirtaş plot can transfer 1/4 of it, which is a complete and lawful transaction that leaves three other co-owners in place.

One widely repeated claim about Turkish shared ownership is wrong and worth naming. There is no statutory ceiling of five co-owners. The Civil Code speaks of several persons holding a property in shares and sets no maximum, so the practical constraints are management and finance rather than a number in the legislation.

The pre-emption right is the provision most likely to surprise a foreign buyer of a fraction, because it gives the other co-owners a claim against the sale. Law 7571, in force since its publication in the Official Gazette of 25 December 2025, sets the period at one year and the price at the rayiç bedel, the current market value, rather than the figure written on the deed.

The regime governing joint purchases, exits and matrimonial and succession consequences is a separate subject with its own rules, treated under fractional and joint ownership in Turkey. What belongs on a deed-reading checklist is narrower. Read the fraction, confirm it matches what is being sold, and establish who the other co-owners are before the pre-emption period becomes someone else's opportunity.

Which deed arrangement fits which buyer goal in Alanya?

Each goal closes a different door, and the doors are closed by statute rather than by practice. The arrangements are not better or worse in the abstract, and the useful comparison is against a specific objective.

Alanya's neighbourhood pattern makes the first two rows the ones that bite most often. Oba, Mahmutlar, Kestel and Kargıcak carry the district's heaviest concentration of new and recent construction, which is also where kat irtifakı deeds concentrate. A buyer whose priority is moving in this season and a buyer whose priority is the lowest entry price are not looking for the same word on the deed.

How do you check which arrangement your deed is under before you pay?

Read the deed itself first, because the arrangement is printed on it, then confirm the position against the register rather than against the paper. Four steps cover it, and none of them depend on the seller's cooperation.

1. Read the arrangement on the face of the deed, which states kat mülkiyeti, kat irtifakı, or the nature of the parcel where neither applies.
2. Check the parcel through the Land Registry and Cadastre General Directorate's parcel enquiry service at `parselsorgu.tkgm.gov.tr`, using the ada and parsel numbers from the deed.
3. Request the takyidat listesi, the list of encumbrances, which is where restrictions live rather than on the certificate.
4. Confirm the current entry through Web Tapu, the land registry's online portal, which the owner reaches through the e-Devlet gateway.

The fourth step carries a condition that catches buyers who entered Turkey as tourists, because access to the e-Devlet gateway requires a password issued against a foreigner identification number beginning 98 or 99 and a residence-class document. An owner without those attends the land registry directorate in person instead.

One question to the seller extracts more than a general enquiry about paperwork. Asking whether the building holds an occupancy permit covering the whole structure, rather than whether the site has iskan, addresses the exact condition Article 3 of the Condominium Law attaches to conversion.

When does kat irtifakı become kat mülkiyeti, and who starts it?

Conversion follows the occupancy permit, and any single holder of a floor easement can start it without waiting for the developer. Article 3 of the Condominium Law provides that kat irtifakı is a species of servitude attached to the land share, converted to kat mülkiyeti as of right on the basis of the occupancy permit issued for the whole of the building, under the conditions the law sets out. The sentence that follows is the one buyers rarely hear. That process may be carried out even at the request of the owner of the plot or of any one of the co-owners holding a floor easement.

The documents come from Article 12, which requires the architectural project showing external elevations and internal divisions, the measurements of independent units, annexes and common areas, the land shares proportional to values calculated by location and size, the type and consecutive numbering of each unit, and the construction area of each unit, together with the occupancy permit. Article 14 supplies the exemption noted earlier, providing that no separate management plan is required at conversion, since one was already filed when the floor easement was created.

The practical effect is a shift in who holds the initiative. A developer who has finished a block in Cikcilli, obtained the permit, and moved on to the next site has no particular incentive to complete the registry work. Article 3 does not leave the owners waiting on that incentive. One holder's request is enough to trigger the process for the building.

Does kat mülkiyeti end if one person buys every apartment?

No, and the Condominium Law says so expressly. Article 46 provides that kat mülkiyeti ends with the deletion of the entry in the condominium register, and then states that the gathering of all independent units of a property into the ownership of a single person does not by itself bring condominium ownership to an end.

Deletion requires an act rather than a state of affairs. The same article provides that the entry is deleted on the written request of all the unit owners, or of the owner who has gathered all the independent units, for the conversion of the condominium ownership into ordinary ownership. The property is then carried over to a new page in the general register according to the land shares attached to the independent units, with a link maintained to the former entries.

An investor acquiring an entire small block in Çıplaklı stays inside the condominium regime by default, with each unit remaining a separate immovable on its own page, until a written request is made. Whether to make that request is a decision with consequences for how the units can later be sold individually, and it is not made by accident.