TAPU

What is TAPU? All about certificate of ownership in Turkey

Tapu is the common name for a certificate of ownership of Turkish real estate. It is issued at the cadastral office after the conclusion and registration of the sale and purchase deal. Before registration, all documentation is carefully checked in the cadastral chamber according to the database.

The contract of sale, which is signed at the first stage of the deal, does not confirm your ownership of the apartment or private house. It is a different kind of legal document that theoretically allows the buyer and seller to change their mind. But getting TAPU in Turkey does not have a reverse course.

Up to 10 people can be entered in the certificate of ownership. Their shares in this case may be different. All people included in the document are considered full owners of the property and can dispose of their share without the consent of other owners.

Turkey allows minor children to be entered on the property certificate, and thus they will become the owners of the property. And you can include organizations, not just people.

How to apply for tapu in Turkey

Foreigners are issued certificates of ownership in two colors: red and blue. Red is issued for real estate objects, blue – for land without development.

The document is issued only by the cadastral chamber, where you must first make an appointment. In the cadastre department, the new owner will be entered in the cadastral book after the deal is registered, and after some time a certificate of ownership will be issued. Having finished with the paperwork and received the paper, you can consider yourself the full owner.

Turkey monitors the safe storage of real estate documents. All papers on the registration of the deal and the contract of sale are stored in the cadastre department. Therefore, if necessary, you can restore documents in one day, if you suddenly lose a certificate of ownership.

You can issue a certificate of ownership of real estate, which is still being built and not put into operation. This will not interfere with obtaining TAPU in Turkey, however, you must pay for the purchase in full before registering the deal with the Cadastral Chamber.

A certificate of ownership of a home purchased in the secondary market in Turkey is no different from a certificate of ownership of a property from a developer.

Real estate statuses in the documentation

For apartments and houses purchased by a foreigner, one of two construction statuses will be indicated:

• Pre-registered (Kat İrtifakı)
• Commissioned (Kat Mülkiyeti)

While the housing has not yet been commissioned, you can still deal with the registration of a certificate of ownership. The developer receives an official document, which is registered in the cadastral department. Even if there is only a plot where construction has not begun, owners are given TAPU in Turkey for individual apartments based on preliminary registration.

When the developer receives Iskan, that is, the registration certificate for the entire complex, the record changes. Instead of the “bağımsız bölüm” (separate apartment) mark, there will be a new housing status – mesken (living space in a commissioned complex). The Cadastral Chamber changes the status independently.

What documents do I need to obtain a TAPU in Turkey?

• Sales contract
• Photos
• Turkish tax number
• Foreign passport
• Notarized Turkish translation of foreign passport

This is an amazing bureaucratic formality – a passport, where all the information is written in Latin, needs to be translated into Turkish for deals in Turkey. However, making a translation is not a difficult task.

In addition, if you do not plan to be present at the cadastral department for registering a deal, you must make a power of attorney for your representative. Most often, they are issued to a reliable real estate company, so that sales managers can receive all documents instead of you and visit the cadastral chamber on the appointed day. Before issuing a power of attorney, make sure that realtors are trusted and competent.

How much will TAPU cost?

First of all, you will need to pay a tax of 4% of the cadastral value of the property. Accordingly, this amount will be different for a 1 + 1 apartment and a giant villa.

In addition, there are additional costs that cannot be directly called the cost of TAPU in Turkey, but they should be included in the budget.

Here are the approximate prices for 2022:

• It will be necessary to order and pay for an independent examination. We invite an appraiser as soon as possible after signing the contract, so as not to waste time. Expert services cost 2800 Turkish Lira.
• It is necessary to pay the state duty of working capital (1400 lira) and maintaining a file in the cadastral chamber (about 500 lira). Folder maintenance is an optional payment. If you plan to independently track how your documents are moved in the cadastral department, then you can not pay for this service. But our experience suggests that it is better to pay 500 lire for competent paperwork inside the cadastral chamber.
• In addition, you need to pay the city hall’s state duty, but it is small – 75 lira in 2022.
• At the conclusion of a transaction in the cadastral department, if at least one of the parties is represented by a foreign citizen, an interpreter must be present, and not just any. It is necessary that he be accredited by the Cadastral Chamber and entered in the register of the Turkish Ministry of Justice. The services of an interpreter will cost approximately 1,600 Turkish lira.

Tapu in Turkey contains all important real estate data

The certificate of ownership includes complete information about the property. So, the following information will be indicated in the red certificate for the property:

• Land address and cadastral number
• Land area
• Ownership status
• Cadastral value

It is determined by an accredited independent expert and fixed in Turkish lira. This cost will be taken into account when calculating the annual tax, as well as for obtaining a residence permit type B for owning real estate (for this, the property must cost at least $ 75,000 according to the cadastre) and the simplified program for obtaining Turkish citizenship (at least $ 400,000). Since the cost in TAPU is indicated in Turkish lira, it must be calculated at the current rate at the time of registration of the deal.

The cadastral value is traditionally underestimated in Turkey. The independent review, which has become mandatory since 2022, has made few changes. Prices for TAPU in Turkey differ from the market prices tenfold. It is beneficial for developers to underestimate the cadastral value, since real estate taxes are much lower.

In terms of taxes, a low appraised value is also beneficial to owners, but this practice has a downside. To obtain citizenship under a simplified program for investment, it is the cadastral value that is taken into account. Considering the widespread practice of underpricing in the cadastre, it should be understood that the market value of suitable housing will almost always be higher. Sometimes a hundred thousand euros, sometimes even more.

In some cases, you can find housing where an independent appraisal of the cost will differ slightly from the real price of the apartment. Most likely, it will be a real estate object on the secondary market.

Everyone knows about lowering prices; this practice is not considered strictly illegal. Of course, it is unpleasant for the state that taxes are paid much less than they could. This is one of the reasons why in 2022 the authorities introduced a limit of $75,000 ($50,000 for small villages) on real estate for which you can get a residence permit for the owner. Now everyone who wants to get an ikamet in order to apply for citizenship by naturalization after 5 years of residence is forced to look for ways to register in the cadastre an apartment close to the real value.

However, if the type of residence permit is not important for you, you can ignore these formalities. If the apartment costs less than 75,000 dollars in the cadastre, you will also be issued a residence permit, but a different one is a tourist one.

• Owner details: previous and new
• Basis for Transfer of Ownership
• Дата, когда новый владелец купил недвижимость
• Confirmation of registration of a new certificate of ownership
• New certificate number in the register
• Old certificate number before re-registration

The address shown on the title deed does not always match the postal address. To find out the postal address, you need to approach the municipality of the city with the received certificate and request an address certificate. The name of this certificate in Turkish is “numarataj”.

The blue certificate of ownership contains the following information:

• Land address
• This is the number and area
• Its estimated value
• The place where the boundary of the plot passes
• Owner details
• Number of the old certificate
• Number of the new certificate
• Reason for purchase
• Dates of the new purchase and the previous one (sales deal with the previous owner)

There are no photos of the owners of TAPU since 2019.

Project Home will handle the paperwork

Real estate experts from the Project Home agency will make it easy for you to buy a property and help you get the main document for an apartment in Turkey. With us, TAPU registration in Turkey will be an easy task.