Real Estate
BUYING GUIDE
Buying a property in Turkey is a relatively simple process. This guide has been created to assist foreigners who wish to purchase a property in Turkey, however it is not a substitute for independent professional consultancy services.
People of a foreign nationality can buy any kind of property (house, business, land) within the legal restrictions of the country. eg
- Can only purchase a maximum of 30 hectares (which can be increased to 60 hectares at the discretion of the Council of Ministers), but cannot exceed 10% of any one urban area of a single district.
- Cannot purchase or rent property within military forbidden zones and security zones.
There is no real difference between Turkish citizens and foreign people with regards to the documents required and issued during a property / land sale simply that all relevant paperwork must be translated into Turkish.
- Find your property.
Once you have found a property you would like to purchase we will assist you through the process of making an offer and getting it accepted.
At this point you will sign a 3 way agreement between the owner, yourself and our estate agents office, and pay an earnest money deposit. This shows you are committed to carry out the purchase, the owner will not sell to somebody else (even at a higher offer) and our office will make the necessary checks at the land registry office in regards to the property to ensure that the property it suitable to be sold.
You will also write into this agreement the date that you intend to make the 11% deposit on.
- Paper work required.
A member of our estate agents office will take you to acquire a tax number from the governmental tax office which you need to enable you to open up a bank account with both a GBP and TL currency facility.
You will need to get 6 passport sized photographs taken.
Next you must go to the notary where you will get a translation of your passport carried out and then give power of attorney to our estate agents office.
Please Note: This is only in regards to the purchase process of this specific property and is automatically cancelled once the purchase has completed.
After this has been done it means that you no longer have to actually be here as our office will do everything required on your behalf.
- Payment
You will need to transfer into your Turkish bank account 11% deposit. 10% for the owner and the other 1% is towards the total commission that our office will receive for the work. You will have to contact the bank so that they release the funds as even though we will hold power of attorney for security reasons you must always give approval for withdrawls.
- Military Check
If the property you are buying has previously been owned by a foreigner and therefore already had a military check carried out on it then you now no longer have to repeat this process. If the property has only been owned by Turkish people then an application is made to Izmir to ensure that the property is not in a certain radios of a military base. This process can take between 4-8weeks to complete.
Once clearance has been given then we will apply for the title deeds (tapu) to be transferred into your name.
- Final payment.
The remaining 90% of the purchase price must now be transferred into your Turkish bank account and again authority granted for the funds to be withdrawn. Also the 4% property purchase tax must be transferred at this stage as this must be paid in full before the new title deeds (tapu) will be issued.
The office will collect the new title deed (tapu) and transfer the electric and water supply into your name.
- Collecting the key!
Once all this has been completed we will contact you immediately to let you know that you are legally the new owner of the property.
The only thing left to do is pay the remaining 2% commission fee to our office and then we will very happily hand over the keys to your new property!.
COSTS
This is a list of additional costs on top of the actual property price in order to complete the purchase.
- 3% of the property price to the office
- 4% of the property price for purchase tax
- Passport photographs
- Translations
- Notary
- Change of name for electricity and water supply
- Military check (only if the property has not had clearance before)
- DASK compulsory earthquake insurance
As a recommendation when you are looking for a property and have a budget then you should always add 8% of the total property price on top to cover all the costs that are incurred to enable you to legally own the property.
This is not a fixed figure but an estimated recommendation and slightly more that it should actually be to help ensure you don’t get hit with unexpected bills that you had not accounted for.