Question: Should I have the new habitation certificate registered on a new tapu now, or can it wait?

Clarification: Obtaining a newly updated tapu which shows the new habitation certificate, the Yapi Kagit Belgesi, has been issued, is a good idea to have done now, and here’s why. On many old tapus, the status of the planning permissions (and other things such as ownership) is not always clear, and often ambiguous. This is partly because different land registries in Turkey did things differently from one another at different times in the past. (How and why this occurred is another story, with historical and cultural context dating from Ottoman times.) Slowly matters are converging towards standardisation. So on an old tapu, it may be presumed that certain things have been done and are in order, but there is no verification. Sometimes these presumptions apply to more than one issue. So the one sure way to attest to having a tapu that is ‘all clear’, is to have a new one issued. By doing so, the presumptions are then checked officially, in the back channels of the belediye and land registry, and the new tapu will, or should, provide unequivocal attestation that all is in order – at least it eliminates any red flags that would serve as a beacon for future investigation or questions.

So why do it now? The reason is a practical one. Doing it now means that whatever those underlying presumptions were,  they would and should have been checked and verified during the Iskan amnesty process of issuing the new habitation certificates. This process entailed a huge volume of work, overloading back office staff (generating more than $5 billion in revenue), and shortcuts may have been presumed to have been applied.  And if the necessary checks weren’t applied, the relevant actions and procedures will need to be implemented in the belediye and land registry back offices. Doing it now is the best time, whilst all those same checks should have been performed recently, and if they weren’t, now is the time to make sure. Its no good waiting six months from now, when all the overloaded staff in the back offices have said good riddance to that Iskan amnesty workload and back-log, and so happy it’s over and to be rid of it: in six months they won’t remember, will play a blame game with one another, and another ‘mess’ ensues. So get it done now, while there is still some clarity in memories about what was done and why.

An important aspect to consider is that many, many applications were received for types of issues that were not originally envisioned when the tapu iskan amnesty was introduced. In other words, the scope of the amnesty broadened considerably in practice, to accommodate many other types of issues, beyond the initially intended registration of easement right uplift. The ‘wild west’ of Turkish property development over the last ten years has innovatively created all sorts of issues that were never imagined or forseen- the un-imaginable.  How-so-ever the back office personnel at the belediye and land registry have chosen and managed to apply ‘work arounds’ to these many variations for specific cases, only they themselves personally know. Any aspersions cast upon the habitation certificate registration in the future will definitely require legal assistance and costs. And so it’s best to get your tapu, ‘over the finish line’ now, whilst those work-arounds are somewhat recent in the workers memories, and with the same perseverance that was applied in getting your iskan or habitation certificate ‘over the finish line.

The last comment is this… all this is new- it has never been done before… and for that reason there are still unknowns to be dealt with… ‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown unknowns’…

The very last words are these, from perhaps the most famous saying in the Turkish vernacular….

‘Burasi Turkiye, her sey olabelir…’

Translation: ‘This is Turkiye- anything and everything is possible…’

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Additional Reading:

Is my property legal? Do I have a habitation certificate? What is a habitation certificate?

These questions are frequently asked by foreign property owners in Turkey. And with some trepidation, fearing the answer will be for the worst.

To begin with, let’s clear up some common misconceptions….

First, to be perfectly correct, technically speaking, there is no such thing as a ‘habitation certificate’. The reason this term is so widely used is because in the early days of doing business for foreign property buyers in Turkey, someone adopted this term instead of the correct terminology- which is  ‘Building Utilisation Permit’, referring to the Turkish Yapi Kullanma Izin Belgesi. If the Building Utilisation Permit authorises the constructed premises for use as a residential dwelling, it is legally habitable. If there is no Yapi Kullanma Izin Belgesi issued, the property is not legally habitable.

Second, a Tapu does not show whether the Yapi Kullanma Izin Belgesi has been issued. What the tapu shows is whether the property has had the easements lifted, if it has been constructed on a land share parcel. If it has, the term ‘kat irtifaki’ will be replaced with kat mulkiyeti’, meaning the property development has passed through the stage of having the easements lifted and property ownership rights granted (the nearest equivalent is ‘condominium’ type rights-  not leasehold, not freehold, and not some other form of usufrucht). And this can not have occurred unless and until the Yapi Kullanma Izin Belgesi has been granted. If the property is a ‘stand alone’ villa, and is in the municipal zoning plan, or has received the construction permit ( yapi ruhsati),  the tapu will show a notation stating ‘Planindir’ or ‘Mustakli’, but these notations in themselves do not evidence a Yapi Kullanma Izin Belgesi... unless there is another notation on the tapu, only the Iskan will suffice as proof.

So, in summary, your tapu will not say where, when, or to whom the Building Utilisation Permit was granted, but it will reveal, by inference, what stage of the planning and permits process has been reached, or perhaps whether one has been granted, and thus whether the property is legally habitable.

Clear as mud? Contact us with the form on the 'ADVICE' page and upload a scan of your tapu, to find out more.