Turkish foreign law to end soon

Turkey's temporary suspension of the issuing of title deeds to foreign property buyers will end on July 16th, it has been officially confirmed.

Prospective buyers were plunged into uncertainty a couple of weeks ago when the Turkish Constitutional Court ruled that a specific section of Article 35 of the Title Deed Act (Tapu) – which relates to property acquisition by non-Turkish national and overseas companies – is contrary to Turkish constitution.

No specific date was given at the time although it was promised that the issue would be resolved as quickly as possible as it obviously delayed the completion of property deals.

The issue was not whether non-Turkish nationals should be permitted to buy land and property in Turkey, but rather whether Parliament or the Government should be relaxing the rules regarding the amount of land that overseas property investors can buy.

The concern is that huge swathes of Turkish agricultural land, particularly on the eastern side, are being bought up by overseas companies. At present, foreign nationals are restricted from buying land and property in rural areas and the proposed amendments to the Article will state that the same rules will now apply to foreign companies.

The new law is scheduled to be passed on 16th July 2008, a government spokesman said. In the meantime, any private foreign investors with a Turkish property in will have encounter a delay to their transaction.

British investors generally buy property in the officially zoned areas around the country's cities, towns and resorts, and will therefore be unaffected by the changes.

However, once the law is amended, foreign companies will be prevented from buying land in rural areas or owning over 0.5% of the land in any one province.

The changes are not expected to adversely affect Turkey's property market overall.

The country is still keen to attract foreign property investors and both rental yields and property prices are expected to continue to rise.

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