Law needed to protect expats buying property in Turkey

According to Hasan Bayrak, editor-in-chief of the Altınkum district’s English-language Voices weekly, the law regarding property sales to foreign nationals should be changed immediately. At the moment, all non-Turkish nationals are subject to clearance by Turkish military authorities before being allowed to proceed with any purchase. This is to establish that the land/property is not in a militarily sensitive area and that the individual is considered suitable to own real estate in Turkey. The real estate transaction can be completed by Land Registry offices, based on information supplied by the military; however, securing military clearance takes three to six months on average and can even extend to one year in some circumstances.

Under pressure from builders, lawyers fail to protect buyers

What foreign buyers do generally during this period is sign a sales agreement with the seller and begin making payments. The sales agreement, however, has no legal basis to prove ownership of the property. “The main problem stems from the wrong belief that the sales agreement confers ownership on the buyer. However, the only way to become an owner of a property is to have it registered at the Land Registry Office,” Berk Çektir, an attorney at law, told Sunday’s Zaman in an interview.

According to data released by the Directorate General of Title Deeds and Land Registry, foreign nationals have purchased a total land area of 53.39 million square meters. Antalya boasts the highest number of fixed assets sold to foreigners with 31,948. Antalya is followed by Muğla with 15,925 and Aydın with 12,229; they are followed by İstanbul, Bursa and İzmir. Even though Muğla comes second with regard to the number of immovable assets sold to foreigners, it is first in terms of the surface area covered by the assets, which is a total of 4.9 million square meters. Online Web sites and petitions set up to protest the lack of recourse available to foreigners, who are in a vulnerable position legally as they try to wend their way through property purchases, tell the tale of the perils at hand despite the large amount of property purchased by expatriates.

H. Ali Taylan, president of the Federation of All Real Property Consultants (TEMFED), says that for about the two past years, the demand from foreigners for real estate in Turkey has dropped. What’s to blame? Poor publicity and a negative image that has spread by word of mouth after foreigners have run into problems, Taylan says.

Bayrak agrees, noting: “In order to avoid any problems, when the sales agreement is signed, the lawyer can draw up another contract as well -- but no lawyer does this, because if they do, then no contractors will bring them any customers. … New buyers are aware of this situation now. Three to four years ago, one out of every 10 foreigners buying property in Didim lost their home due to such problems -- over 300 people were not able to get the tapus [title deeds] for their homes. There are still ongoing trials over this issue. Every three or four weeks, a British paper reports another story like this.” Bayrak says that property sales to foreigners have dropped by 90 percent. “There’s a dramatic fall here,” he said.

Expats at loss for where to turn for help

For those foreigners courageous enough to brave the Turkish home market, the consequences can be devastating. Kevin Brown is among the many expats who discovered too late that a property they had paid for did not belong to them, as they had been cheated during the purchasing process in an unfamiliar legal system. Brown explains that he bought a property in Kuşadası for 28,000 euros. After consulting with other expatriates when his real estate agent requested he be given the power of attorney to purchase the property, Brown opted to use a lawyer instead, to whom he granted the power of attorney. Following delays during which his lawyer, Fahri Öner, made excuses for not delivering the tapu, Brown says he consulted a second lawyer, who gave him quite a shock. “He did a search on the property only to find that Fahri Öner had not only put the property into his own name but had re-mortgaged the property for TL 80,000 and the tax office had frozen his assets and had put a lien on the property of TL 170,000, making it a total of TL 250,000. Fahri Öner then ignored any further correspondence. I am left in a situation where I am occupying a property that legally is not mine and will be repossessed in the near future,” Brown explains.

Another expat from Europe who spoke with Sunday’s Zaman on condition of anonymity due to ongoing negotiations with her builder tells another tale of deception. A married mother of two, she purchased an apartment in Didim’s Altınkum district in 2007, though she lives abroad. A year later, in February 2008, she took out a loan on her home in her home country to buy another apartment from the same building, fully furnishing it with plans to move there with her husband upon their retirement. She is now on the verge of losing everything, as she was unable to obtain the tapu to the residence from the construction company that built the apartment. She hired a lawyer, who also discovered bad news: The construction company that built her home owed the landowner money and had given her apartment away to settle this. For her, this totals a loss of TL 120,000, which also means that she is likely to lose her home in her native country as well.

She is still in negotiations with the builder, and explains: “The builder will not replace my apartment unless I give him TL 10,000 to have one in another residence under construction with another builder. I asked for a replacement with no exchange of money -- the answer was, ‘No!!!!’ [My apartment] has been given to a moneylender, and I have been offered TL 2,000 for my furniture. I wanted to go to the police and prosecutor, and the offer of money is probably to prevent that.” She explains that the builder also threatened to withhold the tapu from the first apartment she bought from them if she takes any public action. “The tapus are about to be issued; the threat was issued via my solicitor, and he tells me there is nothing at all I can do. I am faced with such a dilemma … the story must be told, yet I cannot afford to lose two apartments,” she laments.