Family & Divorce
Mortgage in Turkish Divorce: Who Owns the House?
Paid the mortgage during marriage but title is in spouse's name? Learn how Turkish courts calculate commingled assets and contribution claims.
"I bought the house before we met, so it remains 100% mine, right?"
This is a common misconception in Turkish divorce cases. While the Title Deed (Tapu) might carry only one name, the financial reality is often more complex.
If any mortgage payments, renovation costs, or loans were paid using marital funds (salary, income) during the marriage, the "commingling" of assets creates a significant financial claim for the other spouse.
In this guide, we break down how the Turkish Civil Code calculates "Contribution Claims" and separate "Personal Goods" from "Acquired Goods."
Key Takeaways
The title deed does not settle it. Under Article 202 of the Turkish Civil Code (Türk Medeni Kanunu, TMK), participation in acquired property (edinilmiş mallara katılma) is the default regime, and it produces a money claim, not co-ownership.
TMK Article 225 ends the regime on the date the divorce case was filed; Article 235 values the asset at liquidation. Your contribution is frozen in the past, the price tag is today's.
Three claims exist — participation claim (Article 236), value increase share (Article 227) and a contribution claim for pre-2002 years. Choosing the right one matters, because each has its own formula and its own evidence.
Article 239 allows payment in money or in kind; the claim itself is a debt owed by your spouse, not a share of the title. Article 240 — staying in the family home — applies only where a spouse has died.
Article 15 of the Private International Law Code (MÖHUK, Law 5718) sends immovable property in Türkiye to Turkish law on liquidation.
The Core Concept: Personal vs. Acquired Property
Under the Turkish Civil Code (post-2002), distinguishing between what you owned before and what you paid for during the marriage is the foundation of asset liquidation.
Personal Goods (Kişisel Mallar): Assets purchased before the marriage or acquired via inheritance/gift. These are generally immune from division.
Acquired Goods (Edinilmiş Mallar): Assets (or parts of assets) paid for with labour income or savings during the marriage.
The Friction Point: Legal conflict arises when these categories mix—specifically, when a house is bought before marriage (Personal) but the mortgage is paid off during the marriage (Acquired).
Article 219 lists acquired goods: earnings from work, social security payments, compensation for loss of earning capacity, income produced by personal goods, and substitutes. Article 220 lists personal goods: purely personal items, everything owned when the regime began, anything later inherited or received gratuitously, non-pecuniary damages, and substitutes. Article 222 then matters in many files — whoever says an asset is personal must prove it, and until then every asset of a spouse is presumed acquired.
Three Different Claims — Only One Fits Your File
"Half the house" is not how Turkish law frames it. It offers three separate claims, each with its own formula and its own evidence.
Participation claim (katılma alacağı) — Article 236
Each spouse takes half of the other's residual value (artık değer): under Article 231, the total value of that spouse's acquired goods including add-backs and equalisation, less the debts attached to them, with decreases ignored — a negative balance counts as zero, not as a debt you owe. Since Article 219 treats earnings from work as acquired property, a stay-at-home spouse claims here without tracing a lira of their own. Article 236 also lets the judge cut or cancel the guilty spouse's share where the divorce is granted for adultery (zina) or an attempt on the other spouse's life (hayata kast).
Value increase share (değer artış payı) — Article 227
Use this where you funded something belonging to your spouse: the pre-marital flat, the car in their name, the shop. Article 227 gives a claim proportionate to your contribution in that asset's increase in value, calculated on its liquidation value. If the asset lost value, the article falls back to the initial value of your contribution; if your spouse already sold it, the judge decides according to equity (hakkaniyet). Spouses may waive the share or vary the ratio in writing — the point of a Turkish marital property agreement.
Contribution claim (katkı payı) for pre-2002 years
Married before 1 January 2002? Article 10 of Law No. 4722 keeps your earlier regime alive up to that date and treats you as having chosen the statutory regime from it unless you picked another within a year; within that year spouses could also agree by contract that the statutory regime would apply from the date of marriage. Otherwise a 1996 marriage splits in two: participation in acquired property governs from 1 January 2002, while the earlier years stay under the regime that applied before, and any claim for those years is pursued separately as a contribution claim (katkı payı alacağı).
The "Credit Calculation" Formula
When a property is financed via credit, the title deed does not settle the question. What counts is the proportion of the asset financed by acquired funds, and the Civil Code turns that proportion into money.
The Step-by-Step Calculation:
Identify the "Acquired" Portion: Instalments paid during the marriage out of earnings come from acquired property (Article 219). If they came from the owner's own earnings, Article 230 gives that spouse's acquired property an equalisation claim against the house, which then enters the participation calculation; if they came from the other spouse's earnings, that spouse has a value increase share under Article 227.
Establish the Ratio: The contribution ratio compares what acquired funds paid towards the purchase with the purchase price.
Apply to the Liquidation Value: Critically, the claim is not based on the historical cash paid. It is based on the value the property carries at the time of liquidation (Articles 227 and 230), established by the court-appointed expert.
Ask a family lawyer about your file
Case Study: The Math in Action
To visualise this, consider a simplified scenario in which the instalments came from the owner's own salary and there are no other assets or debts:
Original Purchase Price: 100,000 TL
Credit Paid During Marriage: 40,000 TL (using marital funds)
The Ratio: 40% of the home's value is attributed to marital effort.
At the time of liquidation: The regime already ended on the date the divorce case was filed (Article 225), but Article 235 counts the flat at its value at liquidation — and by then the house has appreciated to 200,000 TL.
The "Acquired" Pool: 40% of 200,000 TL = 80,000 TL.
The Settlement: Under Article 236 each spouse takes half of the other's residual value, so the non-owner spouse is entitled to 40,000 TL (half of the acquired pool).
Key Takeaway: The non-owner spouse gets a share of the current appreciated value, not just the old money they contributed.
The Two Dates That Decide the Number
Article 225 ends the regime retroactively on the date the case was filed, so what follows sits outside the pool: the instalments still being paid, the March bonus, the second flat. Article 235 then counts acquired goods existing at that moment at their liquidation value, while assets added back are valued as at the date they were transferred away. That gap is why the court expert's (bilirkişi) valuation report is central to these cases.
Renovation, Inheritance and Money That Got Mixed
You paid for the kitchen in a flat that is not yours
Renovation is Article 227 territory, not Article 236, and the burden of proving what you paid is yours. Article 222 will not help: its presumption classifies assets, it does not prove you funded the new roof. Keep the contractor's contract, invoices in your own name and bank transfers; cash handed to a builder is much harder to prove.
Inheritance money spent on the family home
Article 220 keeps inherited and gifted assets personal even when they arrive mid-marriage, and extends that status to whatever replaces them — but you must trace it. Article 230 is the mechanism: where one category's debt was paid out of the other, equalisation (denkleştirme) can be demanded at liquidation, and where one category funded the acquisition, improvement or preservation of an asset in the other, equalisation follows the contribution ratio and the liquidation value. A debt whose category cannot be established counts as acquired.
Which Country's Law Applies If One of You Is Not Turkish
MÖHUK Article 15 lets spouses expressly choose the law of their habitual residence at the time of marriage or the law of one of their nationalities; absent a choice it runs through their common national law at the time of marriage, then the law of their common habitual residence at that time, then Turkish law. Its second paragraph governs the house itself: on liquidation, immovables follow the law of the country where they sit, so a flat in Beşiktaş is dealt with under Turkish law however the rest of the marriage is governed. Jurisdiction is a separate question, covered in our guide on filing for divorce in Türkiye.
Filing the Claim: Court, Timing and Cost
Liquidation is a claim in its own right before the family court (aile mahkemesi) (Law No. 4787, Article 4). Article 214 gives venue to the court competent for the divorce or annulment case, and because the regime ends only when the divorce is granted (Article 225), the liquidation claim depends on the outcome of the divorce case. On timing, the Civil Code has no limitation provision written specifically for liquidation claims: Article 178 says rights of action arising from the dissolution of the marriage by divorce are time-barred (zamanaşımına uğrar) one year after the divorce judgment becomes final, while Article 146 of the Turkish Code of Obligations sets a general ten-year limitation period. File within the first year and the question never arises.
It is a money claim, so a proportional court fee attaches to the amount claimed. Since the right figure is unknown before the expert values the property, the route is now a partial claim (kısmi dava) under Article 109 of the Code of Civil Procedure: the indeterminate claim (belirsiz alacak davası) of Article 107 was repealed by Law No. 7589, in force on 31 July 2026, and a fourth paragraph was added to Article 109 in its place. Where only part of a debt is sued for, the claim may be increased once in the same case, free of the bar on widening claims, at any point until the investigation phase (tahkikat) closes — and limitation counts as interrupted from the date of filing for the increased part as well. So you sue for a minimum figure and raise it once the valuation report lands; files opened before that date continue under the old Article 107. Article 239 then governs payment: money or in kind at market (sürüm) value, deferral for a debtor spouse facing serious difficulty, and interest from the end of liquidation. Build the paper trail early — loan agreement, payment schedule, account statements, dates. Our family and divorce team works these files in English, usually under a power of attorney.
Common questions about mortgage payments and property division in a Turkish divorce
Does my spouse get a share of the house I bought before marriage?
Generally, no. Under Article 220 an asset bought before the marriage is a personal good. But mortgage instalments paid from marital income during the marriage give your spouse a claim, measured as a proportion of the property's value at liquidation.
What happens to property I inherited during the marriage?
Article 220 keeps inheritances and gifts personal even when received during the marriage, and so is whatever replaces them. The risk is commingling — selling an inherited flat to buy a joint home. You must then prove the source of funds, because Article 222 presumes everything acquired.
We renovated my spouse's pre-marital house. Can I get my money back?
Yes, as a value increase share (değer artış payı) under Article 227. Article 227 does not return the nominal cash you spent: it applies your contribution ratio to the property's value at liquidation, falling back to your contribution's initial value if the property lost value.
I was a stay-at-home spouse and didn't pay the mortgage. Do I still have rights?
Yes. The regime does not ask who paid the bills. If the mortgage came out of your spouse's salary, Article 219 makes that money acquired property and Article 236 entitles you to half of the residual value generated during the marriage.
How do courts calculate the value of the house? Is it the purchase price?
No. Article 235 counts acquired goods existing when the regime ended at their value at liquidation, not the price paid. The purchase price matters only to fix the ratio of marital contribution that is then applied to the liquidation value.
How long do I have to claim after a divorce in Turkey?
The Civil Code has no limitation provision written specifically for liquidation claims. Article 178 sets one year from the date the divorce becomes final for rights of action arising from the dissolution of the marriage; Article 146 of the Code of Obligations sets a general ten-year period. File within the first year and the question does not arise.
Can I still file an indeterminate claim if I do not know what the house is worth?
No. Law No. 7589 repealed Article 107 of the Code of Civil Procedure with effect from 31 July 2026, so no new indeterminate claim (belirsiz alacak davası) can be filed. You open a partial claim under Article 109 for a minimum figure and, under its new fourth paragraph, increase it once — up to the close of the investigation phase — after the expert values the property, with limitation interrupted from the original filing date for the increased part too.
Can I stop my spouse selling the house before the case ends?
If it is the family home, Article 194 blocks a transfer without your express consent and lets the non-owner spouse ask the land registry directorate (tapu müdürlüğü) to enter the family home annotation (aile konutu şerhi) on the title. If it has already gone, Article 229 adds certain transfers back by value and, if your spouse's assets cannot cover the participation claim, Article 241 lets you claim the shortfall from third parties who received gratuitous transfers that are added back — within one year of learning that your rights were harmed and in any event within five years of the regime ending. See asset hiding in Turkish divorce.
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.