Making a Will in Türkiye as a Foreign Property Owner: Official, Handwritten and Oral Wills, Witnesses, Reserved Shares, Revocation and the Law That Applies

This guide is written for foreign nationals who own a flat, a house or land in Türkiye and want to decide who will receive it. It covers the forms of will in the Turkish Civil Code, the people who may not take part, the reserved shares of close family, revocation, annulment and the opening of the will after death, together with the rules of Turkish private international law that decide which law applies. Fees and document formalities are outside its scope.

1. Which Law Decides What Happens to Your Turkish Property (MÖHUK Articles 20 and 7)

For a foreigner, the starting point is not the Civil Code but Article 20 of the Law on Private International and Procedural Law No. 5718 (Milletlerarası Özel Hukuk ve Usul Hukuku Hakkında Kanun, MÖHUK). Its first paragraph sets two rules side by side: succession is governed by the national law of the deceased, and Turkish law applies to immovables located in Türkiye. A flat, a house or a plot of land in Türkiye therefore passes under Turkish succession law, whatever the nationality of its owner.

Article 20(2) adds that the provisions on the causes for the opening of the succession, its acquisition and its division are subject to the law of the country where the estate is located, and Article 20(3) provides that an estate in Türkiye left without heirs passes to the State.

Three further rules concern the will itself. Under Article 20(4), Article 7 applies to the form of a disposition upon death (ölüme bağlı tasarruf), and a disposition made in a form that complies with the national law of the deceased is also valid. Article 7 provides that legal acts may be made in the form prescribed by the substantive law of the country where they are made, or by the law that governs the substance of the act. Under Article 20(5), the capacity to make a disposition upon death is governed by the national law of the person making it, at the time it is made.

Read together, a will signed in Türkiye in one of the forms of the Turkish Civil Code follows the law of the country where it is made, and a will made in the form of the testator's own national law is covered by the second sentence of Article 20(4). What the will may lawfully do with Turkish immovables, including how much must be left to close family, is measured against Turkish law under Article 20(1). The rest of this guide sets out those Turkish rules. Our guide to cross-border inheritance and estate planning in Türkiye covers what happens to the estate after death.

2. Who May Make a Will: Capacity and Freedom of Will (TMK Articles 502 and 504)

Under Article 502 of the Turkish Civil Code No. 4721 (Türk Medeni Kanunu, TMK), a person must have the power of discernment (ayırt etme gücü) and have completed fifteen years of age to make a will. For a foreign national, MÖHUK Article 20(5) refers the question of capacity to his or her national law at the moment the will is made, so the capacity rules of that law have to be checked as well.

Capacity is not the only condition. Article 504 provides that a disposition upon death made under the influence of error, fraud, threat or duress is invalid. The same article adds that the disposition is deemed valid if the testator does not revoke it within one year from the day he or she learned of the error or the fraud, or from the day the effect of the threat or duress ended.

These two articles explain why the circumstances of signing matter. A will made with time to read it, in a language the testator understands and with his or her wishes recorded in his or her own words, leaves less room for a later argument that the testator lacked discernment or acted under pressure.

3. The Three Forms the Civil Code Recognises (TMK Article 531)

Article 531 is short: a will may be made in official form, in the testator's own handwriting, or orally. The Code offers no fourth form. A typed document signed at home, a message on a phone or a letter dictated to a friend meets none of the three forms unless the conditions described below are satisfied, and Article 557(4) makes a disposition made without complying with the forms provided by law open to annulment.

Each form has its own conditions, its own witnesses rule and its own risks. The official will and the handwritten will are available to anyone at any time. The oral will is an emergency form, open only when an extraordinary situation prevents the other two, and it loses its effect once that situation has passed.

4. The Official Will: An Officer and Two Witnesses (TMK Articles 532-535 and 537)

Under Article 532, an official will is drawn up by an official, with the participation of two witnesses. The official may be a justice of the peace (sulh hâkimi), a notary, or another official authorised by law. Articles 533 and 534 then lay down the sequence:

1. The testator tells the official his or her wishes; the official writes the will or has it written (Article 533).
2. The testator reads the will and signs it (Article 533).
3. The official dates the will and signs it (Article 533).
4. Immediately after the date and signature, the testator declares to the two witnesses, in the presence of the official, that he or she has read the will and that it contains his or her last wishes (Article 534).
5. The witnesses write, or have written, on the will that this declaration was made in front of them and that they found the testator capable of making the disposition, and they sign it (Article 534).

Article 534 also states that the content of the will need not be disclosed to the witnesses. They confirm the declaration and the testator's capacity; they do not have to know who receives what.

Article 535 covers a testator who cannot read or sign the will. In that case the official reads the will to the testator in front of the two witnesses, the testator declares that it contains his or her last wishes, and the witnesses record that declaration on the will and sign it.

Under Article 537, the official who drew up the official will is obliged to keep the original. For a foreigner who lives outside Türkiye this is a practical advantage: the original does not depend on someone finding it among personal papers after death.

5. Who Cannot Be the Officer or a Witness (TMK Article 536)

Article 536 lists the persons who may not take part in drawing up an official will, either as the official or as a witness:

• persons who do not have the capacity to act (fiil ehliyeti);
• persons banned from public service by a criminal court decision;
• persons who cannot read and write;
• the testator's spouse, his or her relatives by blood in the ascending and descending line (parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren), his or her siblings, and the spouses of all of these persons.

The second paragraph of Article 536 adds a further rule: no benefit may be given by that will to the official or the witnesses who took part in drawing it up, nor to their relatives by blood in the ascending and descending line, their siblings or the spouses of those persons.

For a married couple making wills at the same time, the first list has a direct consequence: a spouse cannot act as a witness to the other spouse's will, and neither can their children. Friends or neighbours who are not related to the testator, who can read and write and who receive nothing under the will are the safe choice.

Article 558 deals with the consequence of a breach of the benefit rule. Where a will is defective because persons to whom a benefit was given took part in drawing it up, only those benefits are annulled; the rest of the will is not affected on that ground.

6. The Handwritten Will: Every Word in Your Own Hand (TMK Article 538)

Under Article 538, a handwritten will must be written from beginning to end in the testator's own handwriting, must show the year, the month and the day on which it was made, and must be signed. Article 538 does not require an official or witnesses for this form.

The second paragraph of Article 538 adds that a handwritten will may be left, open or closed, with a notary, a justice of the peace or an authorised official for safekeeping. Deposit is an option, not a condition of validity, but it answers the main weakness of this form: a will that stays in a drawer may be lost, destroyed or never found.

The conditions are strict. A will typed on a computer and only signed by hand is not written in the testator's own handwriting from beginning to end, and a will that omits the year, the month or the day does not show the date the article requires. Article 557(4) makes a disposition made without complying with the forms provided by law open to annulment. A foreigner who wishes to use this form in a foreign language should also keep in mind that the heirs, the judge and any later court will have to read and understand the text exactly as written.

7. The Oral Will, Only in Extraordinary Situations (TMK Articles 539-541)

Article 539 allows an oral will only where the testator cannot make an official or a handwritten will because of extraordinary circumstances, such as imminent danger of death, interruption of communications, illness or war. The testator tells his or her last wishes to two witnesses and charges them with writing, or having written, a will that matches the declaration. The prohibitions that apply to witnesses of an official will apply here too, except the requirement to be able to read and write.

Article 540 then sets out how the oral will is documented. One of the witnesses immediately writes down the testator's wishes, stating the place, the year, the month and the day, signs the document and has the other witness sign it. Together they then deliver it without loss of time to a civil court of peace or a civil court of first instance (sulh veya asliye mahkemesi), declaring that the testator was capable of making the disposition and that an extraordinary situation existed; alternatively, they may have the declaration recorded directly in the court's minutes. Article 540 also names the persons who take the judge's place in military service, aboard a means of transport travelling abroad and in health institutions.

Under Article 541, if it later becomes possible for the testator to make a will in one of the other forms, the oral will lapses once one month has passed from that date. A foreigner who survives the emergency and wishes the arrangement to stand should therefore make an official or handwritten will within that month.

8. Official, Handwritten and Oral Wills Side by Side

The table compares the three forms the Civil Code allows. Each entry follows the text of the article cited.

9. How Much You Can Leave Freely: Reserved Shares (TMK Articles 505-506, 560 and 571)

A will can do a great deal, but it cannot take away the reserved share (saklı pay) of the closest relatives. Under Article 505, a testator who has descendants, parents or a spouse as heirs may make dispositions upon death only over the part of the estate outside the reserved shares. If none of these heirs exists, the testator may dispose of the whole estate.

Article 506 sets the reserved shares as fractions of each heir's statutory share (yasal miras payı), not of the estate as a whole:

• for descendants: one half of the statutory share;
• for each of the mother and the father: one quarter of the statutory share;
• for the surviving spouse: the whole of the statutory share where the spouse inherits together with descendants or with the parents' line, and three quarters of the statutory share in other cases.

Siblings no longer have a reserved share: the provision that gave them one was repealed by Law No. 5650 in 2007.

Because Turkish law governs succession to immovables in Türkiye under MÖHUK Article 20(1), a will dealing with a Turkish flat or house should be drafted with these reserved shares in mind, even where the testator's national law allows more freedom. Under Article 560, heirs who do not receive the value of their reserved shares may sue for the reduction (tenkis) of the testator's dispositions that exceed the part he or she could dispose of. Under Article 571, the right to bring that action lapses (the Code says düşer) one year from the date the heirs learn that their reserved shares have been infringed and, in any event, in the case of wills, ten years from the date the will was opened. The reduction claim may always be raised as a defence.

10. Changing Your Mind: Revoking or Replacing a Will (TMK Articles 542-544)

A will is not final while the testator is alive. Under Article 542, the testator may at any time revoke an earlier will, wholly or in part, by a new will made in one of the forms provided by law. The new will does not have to be in the same form as the earlier one; what matters is that it complies with one of the legal forms.

Under Article 543, a will may also be revoked by destroying it. A will destroyed by accident or through the fault of a third person, whose content cannot be established exactly and completely, becomes void; claims for compensation are reserved.

Article 544 covers the case where a testator makes a new will without removing the earlier one. The later will takes the place of the earlier will unless it clearly only supplements it. A bequest of a specific asset is also cancelled where the testator later makes a disposition over that asset that is incompatible with the bequest.

For a foreigner who has made wills in more than one country, these rules make one step worth taking: each new will should state clearly whether it revokes earlier wills, wholly or only as regards assets in Türkiye, so that no one has to argue later whether the new text replaces or merely supplements the old one.

11. When a Will Can Be Annulled, and the Time Limits (TMK Articles 557-559)

Article 557 lists four grounds on which a disposition upon death may be annulled:

1. it was made at a time when the testator did not have the capacity to make a disposition;
2. it was made under the influence of error, fraud, threat or duress;
3. its content, a condition attached to it or a charge imposed by it is contrary to law or morals;
4. it was made without complying with the forms provided by law.

Under Article 558, the annulment action may be brought by an heir or a legatee who has an interest in the annulment.

Article 559 sets the time limits. The right to bring the annulment action lapses one year from the date the claimant learns of the disposition, of the ground for annulment and of the fact that he or she is entitled to sue, and in any event, for wills, after ten years from the date the will was opened as against defendants acting in good faith, and twenty years as against defendants not acting in good faith. The Code places these periods under the heading hak düşürücü süre and uses the verb düşer: when the period expires, the right to sue itself lapses. Invalidity may always be raised as a defence (def'i).

The two clocks run differently. The one-year period starts only when the claimant knows all three things the article lists; the ten- and twenty-year periods run from the opening of the will, regardless of what the claimant knows. Heirs living abroad who learn of a Turkish will late should therefore take advice as soon as they do.

12. After Death: Delivery to the Judge and Opening of the Will (TMK Articles 595-596)

Under Article 595, a will found after the testator's death must be delivered immediately to the justice of the peace, whether or not it is valid. The official who drew up or kept the will, and anyone who kept it at the testator's wish, came into possession of it in any other way or found it among the deceased's belongings, must deliver it as soon as he or she learns of the death; otherwise that person is liable for the resulting damage. The justice of the peace examines the will at once, takes the necessary protective measures and, where possible after hearing those concerned, decides whether the estate is to be handed over provisionally to the statutory heirs or placed under official administration.

Under Article 596, the will is opened within one month from its delivery by the justice of the peace of the testator's domicile and read to those concerned, again whether or not it is valid. Known heirs and other interested persons are invited to attend the opening if they wish. The same steps apply to wills of the testator found later.

The date of opening matters beyond the ceremony itself: it is the starting point of the ten- and twenty-year limits in Article 559 and of the ten-year limit for reduction in Article 571. A testator who tells the family where the will is kept, or deposits it under Articles 537 or 538, makes it easier for these steps to happen without delay.

13. A Checklist for Foreign Owners of Property in Türkiye

The sequence below follows the order in which the rules discussed above apply to a foreign owner, from the choice of law to the opening of the will.

1. List your assets in Türkiye; for immovables located in Türkiye, Turkish succession law applies (MÖHUK Art. 20(1)).
2. Check your capacity under your national law at the time of making the will (MÖHUK Art. 20(5)); the Turkish Civil Code requires discernment and fifteen completed years (TMK Art. 502).
3. Choose the form: an official will before a notary or justice of the peace with two witnesses (Art. 532), or a will written entirely in your own hand, dated with year, month and day, and signed (Art. 538). The oral will is only for extraordinary situations (Art. 539).
4. For an official will, choose two witnesses who can read and write, are not your spouse, relatives in the ascending or descending line, siblings or their spouses, and receive nothing under the will (Art. 536).
5. Measure your plan against the reserved shares of your descendants, parents and spouse (Arts. 505-506).
6. Say clearly whether the new will revokes earlier wills, wholly or in part (Arts. 542 and 544).
7. Decide where the original will be kept: the official keeps an official will (Art. 537); a handwritten will may be deposited with a notary, justice of the peace or authorised official (Art. 538).
8. Tell your family where the will is, so that it can be delivered to the justice of the peace and opened after your death (Arts. 595-596).

None of these steps is complicated on its own. Trouble arises where they are skipped: a witness who is a relative, a handwritten text without a full date, a gift of the whole flat that ignores the reserved shares, or an older will that no one revoked. Each of these points can be checked before signing, when it is still easy to correct.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a will I made in my home country valid for my apartment in Turkey?

As to form, it can be. Under MÖHUK Article 20(4), Article 7 applies to the form of a disposition upon death, so a will made in the form of the country where it was signed may be valid, and a will made in a form that complies with the testator's national law is also valid. The content is another matter: Turkish law governs succession to immovables in Türkiye (Article 20(1)), so the Turkish reserved shares apply to the apartment.

Can my spouse or my children act as witnesses to my will?

No. Article 536 of the Turkish Civil Code excludes the testator's spouse, relatives by blood in the ascending and descending line, siblings and the spouses of these persons from acting as official or witness for an official will. Under Article 539, the same prohibitions, except the literacy requirement, apply to the witnesses of an oral will.

Can I leave my Turkish property entirely to my spouse, or to a friend?

Only within the limits of the reserved shares. If you have descendants, parents or a spouse as heirs, you may dispose freely only of the part of the estate outside their reserved shares (Article 505). Descendants are entitled to one half of their statutory share, each parent to one quarter, and the spouse to the whole or three quarters of the statutory share depending on which relatives inherit alongside (Article 506). If none of those heirs exists, you may dispose of the whole estate.

Does a handwritten will have to be witnessed or deposited with a notary?

Article 538 requires the handwritten will to be written from beginning to end in the testator's own handwriting, to show the year, month and day, and to be signed. It does not require witnesses. Deposit with a notary, a justice of the peace or an authorised official, open or closed, is an option for safekeeping that the same article provides.

How do I revoke an older will?

By making a new will in one of the legal forms, which may revoke the earlier one wholly or partly (Article 542), or by destroying it (Article 543). If you make a new will without removing the earlier one, the later will takes its place unless it clearly only supplements it (Article 544).

How long do heirs have to challenge a will in Turkey?

Under Article 559, the right to bring an annulment action lapses one year from the date the claimant learns of the will, the ground for annulment and his or her own entitlement, and in any event ten years after the will was opened against defendants in good faith, or twenty years against defendants not in good faith. Invalidity can always be raised as a defence.

What happens to the original will after the testator dies?

Whoever holds or finds it must deliver it immediately to the justice of the peace, whether or not it is valid (Article 595). The justice of the peace of the testator's domicile opens it within one month from delivery and reads it to those concerned, inviting the known heirs and other interested persons to attend if they wish (Article 596).