British Citizen Inheritance in Turkey: Property, Wills, Tapu

If you are a British citizen who owns property in Turkey, or the family of one who has died, start with the hard fact. Your English will does not decide who inherits the Turkish flat. Turkish law does. Under the Turkish Code on Private International Law and Procedure (MÖHUK, Law No. 5718) Article 20, succession is governed by the deceased's national law, but immovable property located in Turkey is governed by Turkish law. There is no opt-out, no clause you can add, no jurisdiction you can choose.

This rule surprises many British clients. English law gives a testator wide freedom to choose who inherits. Turkish law does not. A fixed share of the Turkish property is reserved for your closest family whatever your will says, and they can claim it back through the courts.

What Turkish law takes over, and what it leaves to England

The split is narrower than people fear, and sharper. Turkish law decides who inherits the immovable, in what shares, and what portion you were free to give away. English law still matters for two things: whether your will was made in a valid form, and whether you had capacity to make it. A will signed and witnessed as English law requires is not thrown out in Turkey for being the wrong shape. MÖHUK Article 20(4), read with Article 7, accepts a form permitted by the law of the place of execution or by the law governing the succession, and also a form permitted by the deceased's own national law; Article 20(5) judges capacity by the national law at the time the will was made.

Your bank accounts, shares and English house are a different matter: who inherits them is decided by your national law, not by Turkish law (MÖHUK Article 20(1)). It is only the land and buildings in Turkey that move across.

Forced heirship: the shares you cannot write out

Turkish law reserves a portion of the estate for close family. This is the reserved share (saklı pay), set out in the Turkish Civil Code (TMK, Law No. 4721) Article 506. It is calculated as a fraction of what that person would have received under the intestacy rules.

Work it through with a common case. A British man dies leaving a wife and two children and a flat in Antalya. On intestacy the wife takes one quarter and each child three eighths. The wife's reserved share is her full quarter. Each child's reserved share is half of three eighths, so three sixteenths each. Together that locks up five eighths of the flat. You were free to dispose of three eighths, and no more.

If you are cut out anyway: the abatement claim

A will that overshoots the disposable portion is not void. It stands until a reserved heir attacks it, through an action for abatement (tenkis davası, TMK Article 560). Where the deceased's last domicile was not in Turkey, the case is heard where the estate assets are (MÖHUK Article 43). The claim reduces the gift back to the disposable portion rather than cancelling the will. Under TMK Article 571 the right to sue lapses one year from the day you learn your reserved share has been infringed, and in any event ten years from the opening of the will; abatement can still be raised as a defence at any time. Miss the time limits and the will you thought was unfair becomes the final answer. If the property was given away during life rather than by will, TMK Article 565 lists the lifetime gifts that can also be reduced, and that dispute belongs with contested estate litigation rather than a registry application.

The certificate of inheritance, and why a UK grant of probate is not enough

To touch the title deed (tapu) you need a Turkish certificate of inheritance (veraset ilamı, also called the mirasçılık belgesi), issued under Turkish Civil Code Article 598. It names every heir and the exact fraction each one takes.

Turkish notaries can also issue them, but Article 71/B of the Notaries Law (Law No. 1512) bars a notary from doing so where the certificate is requested by foreigners, where the population records are insufficient, or where the matter requires adjudication. Your application therefore goes to a civil court of peace (sulh hukuk mahkemesi). Issuing a certificate of inheritance is a non-contentious matter (HMK Article 382), and it does not require anyone to fly to Turkey if you give a power of attorney to a Turkish lawyer.

Clients often ask whether the English grant of probate can simply be recognised instead. A foreign court decision, including a non-contentious one, has effect in Turkey only once a Turkish court has recognised it, and the same applies when an administrative step such as a registry entry is to be based on it (MÖHUK Article 58). Recognition is refused where the decision concerns a matter within the exclusive jurisdiction of Turkish courts (MÖHUK Article 54(1)(b)), and actions concerning rights in rem in an immovable belong exclusively to the court where the property lies (HMK Article 12, applied internationally through MÖHUK Article 40). Even where a foreign decision can be brought across under the recognition and enforcement procedure, the shares in the Turkish property remain those set by Turkish law under MÖHUK Article 20. The Turkish certificate is the direct route.

What the court will want: the death certificate, apostilled and translated by a sworn translator; documents proving each relationship, such as birth and marriage certificates, also apostilled; passport copies and Turkish tax numbers for the heirs; and the tapu details. The United Kingdom and Türkiye are both parties to the 1961 Apostille Convention, so consular legalisation is not needed.

Registering the tapu: the intikal

Ownership does not wait for the registry. Under Turkish Civil Code Article 705, property passes to the heirs at the moment of death, before any entry is made. But that same article stops you from selling, mortgaging or gifting it until the register catches up. That catching-up is the transfer of inheritance (intikal), done at the Land Registry Directorate for the district.

The registry asks for the certificate of inheritance, identity documents and, where the heirs are not present, notarised and apostilled powers of attorney. The inheritance tax does not hold up this registration: under Article 19 of Law No. 7338 the inherited property is registered without waiting for the tax to be assessed, but it cannot then be sold or mortgaged until the tax on it is paid in full and the tax office issues a clearance letter (ilişik kesme belgesi). The mechanics of the deed itself are the same ones we describe in our guide to buying property in Turkey and taking title at the tapu.

Two warnings. First, the Land Registry Law (Law No. 2644) Article 35 caps foreign individuals' holdings at 10 per cent of the privately owned area of a district and 30 hectares per person nationwide, and property inherited beyond those limits must be disposed of by the heir within a period set by the Ministry of Finance of no more than one year; otherwise it is liquidated and the proceeds are paid to the heir. Registry transactions are also checked against the coordinates of military forbidden, military security and strategic zones that Article 35 requires to be supplied to the registry. British families (inheriting villas in Fethiye & Bodrum) should have both points checked before the transfer. Second, heirs inherit debts as well as assets (TMK Article 599). If the flat carries a mortgage or unpaid charges you do not want, you have three months from learning of the death to renounce the inheritance (TMK Article 606). An heir who, before that period ends, deals with the estate beyond ordinary management or takes estate assets as his own loses the right to renounce (TMK Article 610), so do not sign at the registry until you have decided.

Inheritance and transfer tax: the base and the clock

Inheritance and transfer tax (veraset ve intikal vergisi) is governed by Law No. 7338. Two points do most of the work.

First, the base. Real property is valued for this tax at its property tax value (Article 10), fixed as at the date of death (Article 11), not at what the flat would fetch on the market. Rates for inheritance run on a progressive scale from 1 to 10 per cent (Article 16), and each child's and the spouse's share carries an exemption that is revalued every year (Article 4(b)).

Second, the clock. Article 9 sets the filing deadline by geography. Where the death occurred abroad and the heirs are in the same country as the deceased, the return is due four months from death. Where the death occurred abroad and the heirs are in Turkey, six months. Where the heirs are in a third country, eight months. A typical British family, with the death in England and the heirs in England, is on the four-month clock. The tax itself is then paid over three years, in instalments each May and November.

The registration itself does not wait for the tax, but until the tax on the property is paid in full it cannot be sold, mortgaged or burdened with any other real right, and the land registry will not process a sale without the tax office's clearance letter (Article 19).

What you can still do while you are alive

If you are planning rather than inheriting, there are real options, and one that does not work.

The option that does not work is a cleverer will. No drafting, no trust structure recited in an English document, and no choice-of-law clause displaces Turkish reserved shares over Turkish land.

What does help: dispose of the disposable portion deliberately, by a Turkish will made in Turkish form: either an official will drawn up by a notary or civil court of peace judge with two witnesses (TMK Article 532), or a will written entirely in your own hand, dated and signed (TMK Article 538). Have it drafted alongside the English will, not instead of it, and check the revocation clauses in both. A later will can revoke an earlier one (TMK Article 542), and a later will that does not clearly supplement the earlier one takes its place (TMK Article 544).

Transferring in your lifetime is possible, but understand the exposure. TMK Article 565 makes certain lifetime gifts subject to abatement like a will, including gratuitous transfers plainly made to defeat the reserved-share rules, and a contract that hides a gift behind a sale is judged by the parties' real intention rather than its wording (Code of Obligations Article 19). A sale to one child at an undervalue can therefore be challenged by the other heirs after your death, including through a deed cancellation lawsuit. Holding through a company changes the analysis, because shares are movable property and fall outside the Article 20 rule for immovables, but it brings its own tax and reporting weight. That trade-off is set out in our comparison of buying property through a company versus personally, and it needs to be decided before purchase, not after. Wider structuring questions belong with our real estate practice.

What to send us

Send the death certificate, the tapu or its registry details, passport copies for every heir, the documents proving each relationship to the deceased, and a scan of any will in any country. We will then tell you who the heirs are under Turkish law, what fraction each one takes, whether the will you hold changes that, roughly what the tax will be on the property tax value, and whether anyone needs to travel. If the answer is that the estate is not worth the process, we will tell you that too.

This guide is general information on Turkish law, not legal advice on your own matter. Rules and practice change; check the position before you act.