Enforcing an English Court Judgment in Turkey: UK Guide

An English court judgment has no force in Türkiye on its own. Before you can touch a Turkish bank account, a flat on the coast or a Turkish company's receivables, you need a Turkish court to grant tenfiz (enforcement) — a fresh case, filed in Türkiye, in Turkish, against the same defendant. Only when that Turkish decision is itself final can you open execution proceedings and start attaching anything.

For British claimants, the gateway condition that sinks most foreign judgments is the one England passes. There is no enforcement treaty between Türkiye and the United Kingdom. The 1931 convention between the two states covers service of documents and the taking of evidence, not the enforcement of judgments. What Turkish courts rely on instead is reciprocity in fact, and it holds: an English court will entertain a claim on a Turkish money judgment at common law, so Turkish courts accept that English judgments should be enforced here. That question is usually disposed of in a paragraph. Your case will be won or lost somewhere else.

How reciprocity with England actually works

Article 54(a) of MÖHUK Law No. 5718 requires a treaty, or a provision of law, or a practice in fact under which judgments of Turkish courts are enforced in the state where the judgment was given. England has no treaty with Türkiye on judgments and no statute covering them. It has the practice: a final and conclusive judgment for a definite sum, given by a court with jurisdiction in the international sense, can be sued on in England as a debt. Turkish courts have treated that as sufficient for years.

Do not assume the judge will take your word for it. Expect one of three things. Most often the court accepts reciprocity on the strength of existing Court of Cassation authority and moves on. Sometimes the court writes to the Ministry of Justice's directorate for international law and foreign relations and waits for a reply, which adds two to four months for nothing. Occasionally the court asks you to produce an opinion from an English solicitor or barrister on common law enforcement. File that opinion, apostilled and translated, with your petition on day one. It costs a few hundred pounds and can save you a hearing cycle.

One point that is worth money to some readers: reciprocity is not required for tanıma (recognition). Article 58 of the same law switches off the reciprocity condition where you only need the English judgment treated as conclusive proof rather than executed against assets. If your real need is status or a finding rather than payment, recognition is the cheaper and shorter route, and our recognition and enforcement practice will usually steer you there. The general framework that applies to judgments from any country is set out in our guide to enforcing foreign court judgments in Turkey.

The four ways British claimants lose

Service on a defendant in Türkiye

This is the big one. Article 54 allows the defendant to resist enforcement if they were not duly summoned before the English court, were not represented there, and a default judgment was given contrary to those laws. Both Türkiye and the United Kingdom are parties to the 1965 Hague Service Convention, and service on a defendant in Türkiye must go through the Turkish Ministry of Justice as central authority. If you obtained default judgment after serving by post, by email, on a UK correspondence address, or by an alternative method the English court permitted, a Turkish defendant who turns up and objects has a strong hand.

Two qualifications, both practical. The service objection has to be raised by the defendant; the Turkish court will not take it on its own initiative. And a defendant who acknowledged service or instructed English solicitors has largely spent this argument. Where the defendant defended on the merits in England, service is almost never the losing point.

The English judgment is the easy part. Most British claimants who lose in Türkiye lost years earlier, in an English courtroom, on the day someone decided how to serve a defendant living in Türkiye.

The order is not final

Türkiye enforces final judgments. A worldwide freezing order, an interim payment order, a case management order, or a judgment with permission to appeal still outstanding will not be enforced. Claimants regularly ask us to take a freezing injunction to a Turkish court to lock down a bank account. We cannot, and neither can anyone else. If you need protective measures over Turkish assets, they have to be obtained from a Turkish court, in Turkish proceedings.

Public policy

Enforcement is refused where the judgment is manifestly contrary to kamu düzeni (public policy). In practice that bites on exemplary or punitive damages, which Turkish law does not recognise, and on anything purporting to determine rights in rem over land in Türkiye, which falls within the exclusive jurisdiction of Turkish courts. If the dispute is really about a Turkish property, an English judgment will not move the title deed and you need Turkish real estate proceedings instead.

What public policy does not cover, contrary to what you may be told: brevity. English judgments in default or on summary judgment often carry little or no reasoning, and the Court of Cassation settled in a 2012 unification-of-case-law decision that the absence of reasons in a foreign judgment is not, by itself, a breach of Turkish public policy.

The jurisdiction objection

The defendant may object that the English court took jurisdiction without any genuine connection to the parties or the subject matter. A contractual English jurisdiction clause, an English-domiciled defendant, or performance in England all answer this comfortably. A judgment obtained against a Turkish national on a thin jurisdictional hook does not.

What the defendant cannot do is re-argue the merits. The Turkish court does not review whether the English judge was right. The defences are limited to the statutory conditions and to saying the debt has been paid, in whole or in part, since judgment.

Getting the English paperwork right

The sealed order

You need a copy of the judgment or order certified by the English court, not a copy from your solicitor's file and not a transcript. Where the court office will not simply issue one, CPR Part 74 provides the route: an application for a certified copy of a judgment for the purpose of enforcement in a foreign country, supported by written evidence. Ask for certified copies of every order the judgment depends on, including any consent order or costs order you intend to enforce.

The certificate of finality

Turkish courts expect a kesinleşme şerhi (finality annotation) and there is no direct English equivalent. English courts do not stamp judgments as final. What you obtain instead is a certificate from the court confirming that no appeal has been filed and the time for appealing has expired, or that permission to appeal was refused. Get it from the court office that issued the judgment; where an appeal was attempted, get a certificate from the Civil Appeals Office as well. A witness statement from your solicitor saying no appeal was brought is not a substitute, and filing without the certificate costs you a hearing and roughly two months.

Apostille and translation

Both states are parties to the 1961 Hague Apostille Convention, so no consular legalisation is needed. The FCDO Legalisation Office apostilles each document separately: the sealed order gets one, the certificate of finality gets its own, the English legal opinion gets its own. Then everything is translated by a yeminli tercüman (sworn translator) and certified before a noter (notary) in Türkiye, or handled at a Turkish consulate in the UK. Translate the apostille certificates too. Leaving them untranslated is the single most common reason a Turkish court sends a British claimant's bundle back.

Which court, and how the case runs

Article 51 gives jurisdiction to the asliye court of the defendant's Turkish domicile; failing that, their residence; failing both, one of the courts of Ankara, İstanbul or İzmir. Where the underlying dispute is commercial, the case goes to the commercial court of first instance. Where it concerns family matters, it goes to the family court, and if what you have is an English divorce decree you should read our guide to recognition of foreign divorce decrees in Turkey before doing anything else, because that is a different and much lighter procedure.

The case is heard under basit yargılama usulü (simple trial procedure). Expect three to six hearings, six to ten weeks apart. You do not attend. You sign a power of attorney before a Turkish consulate or an apostilled one before a UK notary, and your Turkish lawyer appears.

How long it takes, and what it actually costs

In İstanbul, budget eight to eighteen months to first-instance judgment where the defendant engages, and closer to eight where they do not. Either side then has two weeks to appeal to the regional court of appeal, and an appeal suspends execution, so a determined defendant can add another twelve to twenty-four months before you attach a single lira.

The main cost driver is the court fee. Turkish courts generally treat enforcement of a money judgment as attracting a proportional fee calculated on the sterling sum converted into Turkish lira, with a quarter payable on filing and the balance on judgment. Some courts apply the fixed fee instead and the point is still argued, so ask for a figure on your specific number before you commit. Add counsel's fee under the statutory tariff, which is also proportional, add translation, which for a long judgment with schedules can run into four figures, and add a further fee at the execution stage. The judgment is enforced in the currency in which it was awarded; conversion happens later, at execution.

When we tell British claimants not to bother

Most often, when there are no assets. Turkish enforcement offices can search banks, the land registry and the vehicle registry through the national judicial system, but only once you hold an enforceable title. Spending eighteen months and a proportional court fee to discover the defendant owns nothing in Türkiye is the worst outcome in this area of work, and it is not rare. Do an informal asset check first through a Turkish lawyer holding a power of attorney. It costs very little and it decides the case.

We also advise against it where the judgment is a default judgment obtained on postal or alternative service against a defendant living in Türkiye, and the defendant is likely to defend. Suing fresh in Türkiye through Turkish litigation is often faster than losing an enforcement case and then starting anyway. Where the contract contained an arbitration clause, the New York Convention route for foreign arbitral awards is materially quicker and reciprocity never arises. And where the sum is below roughly £25,000, the fees, translation and two years of exposure to appeal rarely justify the exercise.

What to send us

Send the sealed judgment or order, any earlier orders it depends on, the claim form and particulars of claim, whatever you have showing how and where the defendant was served, anything about appeals filed or refused, and whatever you know about the defendant's assets in Türkiye. We will tell you in writing whether the service history survives Article 54, whether a certificate of finality is obtainable in your case, what the Turkish court fee will be on your figure, and roughly how long it will take. If our view is that the judgment is not worth enforcing here, you will get that answer before you spend anything on translation.

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.