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 surprises British clients more than any other rule we explain. England gives you testamentary freedom: you can leave everything to a charity, a second spouse, or one favoured child. Turkey does not. A fixed slice of the Turkish property belongs to your closest family whatever your will says, and they can take 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 accepts a form permitted either by the place of execution or by the deceased's own national law.

Note the symmetry that catches people out. English private international law also sends immovable property abroad to the law of the place where it sits. So both systems point at Turkey. Your English solicitor was not wrong; the Turkish flat was simply never theirs to give.

Your bank accounts, shares and English house are a different matter and stay with English law. 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.

The most expensive mistake we see is a properly drafted English will leaving the Turkish flat to one child, and a father who died believing the matter was settled. His other children set it aside in Turkey for the price of a court fee and some translations.

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) at the civil court where the property sits. The claim reduces the gift back to the disposable portion rather than cancelling the will. The time limits are strict: 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. Miss them and the will you thought was unfair becomes the final answer. If the property was moved before death rather than by will, the route is usually different and harder, and 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 issue these routinely for Turkish families, but they will refuse where the deceased or the heirs are foreign nationals. Your application goes to the civil court of peace (sulh hukuk mahkemesi) for the district where the property is registered. It is a non-contentious application, usually decided on the papers, 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. Realistically, no, and we would tell you not to spend money trying. MÖHUK Article 12 gives Turkish courts exclusive jurisdiction over claims concerning rights in rem in Turkish immovables, and Article 54 refuses recognition of foreign judgments in exactly those exclusive areas. Even where a foreign decision can be brought across under the recognition and enforcement procedure, a document naming executors under English shares will not survive contact with Turkish reserved shares. The Turkish application is faster and cheaper than the fight.

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, a tax clearance letter from the tax office, identity documents and, where the heirs are not present, notarised and apostilled powers of attorney. Registry fees and revolving-fund charges are modest next to the tax. 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. If the property sits in a military or security zone, or the heir's acquisition breaches the limits in the Land Registry Law (Law No. 2644) Article 35, the heir is not registered as owner. The property is sold and the proceeds are paid over instead. British citizens rarely hit this, but it happens near coastal military areas. Second, heirs inherit debts as well as assets. If the flat carries a mortgage or unpaid charges you do not want, Turkish law gives you three months from learning of the death to renounce the inheritance. Once you sign at the registry, that door is shut.

Inheritance and transfer tax: usually less than you fear

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 the municipal property tax value at the date of death, not at what the flat would fetch on the market. That figure is often a fraction of the real value, and the tax bill is correspondingly smaller. Rates for inheritance run on a progressive scale from 1 to 10 per cent, and each child's and the spouse's share carries an exemption that is revalued every year.

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 registry will not complete the intikal until the tax office issues its clearance letter, so late filing does not just cost a penalty, it freezes the property. This is the single most common reason an estate sits untouched for years.

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, which for most people means an official will before a notary or civil court of peace with two witnesses. Have it drafted alongside the English will, not instead of it, and check the revocation clauses in both. We have seen a Turkish will silently revoke an English one because it opened with a general revocation of all previous testamentary dispositions.

Transferring in your lifetime is possible, but understand the exposure. A sale to one child at an undervalue is the classic set-up for a collusive-transfer claim (muris muvazaası), and the remedy the other heirs seek is a deed cancellation lawsuit after your death. 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. Within a few working days we will 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.