Hello--

I am an American woman (applying for a kimlik) happily married to a Turkish man for 22 years. :-) We have no children. He has a living mother and sister. The sister has a daughter. He also has a 1/2 brother (from his father's first marriage) and his 1/2 brother has two daughters. We are in the process of applying for jobs in Turkey and hope to move there this fall. We have a home in the States; both of our names are on the mortgage. We plan on renting our place out when we move to Turkey.

We are also planning on buying a home in Turkey.

It is our wish to leave everything to eachother. We understand this isn't possible in Turkey, according to Turkish law.

My questions:

1. Would it help if we put the home we buy in Turkey in my name only? Would his family still have the right to it then?
2. If we put the home in my name and I died first, would he be compelled to name my family members and have them take their portion? Couldn't he just say that I am estranged from them/don't know where they live, are all dead, etc.? Or would he have to somehow (how?) "proove" this?
3. I'd actually like to stipulate that my family gets some of my things, i.e. jewlery, etc. and he agrees with this, but then I'm worried that if I put it in a will, the courts will be aware of my relations and would force a Turkish division of assets when that is not what either of us wants and my family does not expect (but, I think, would be hard-pressed to say no to.)
4. The same question only with money. If we put most of our money in a savings/investments in my name only, then if we had a small shared checking account to pay bills, is the only money his family could grab is the one in the checking account?
5. Would his family be able to grab our home in the US? I'm assuming not, but my fear is that his greedy sister, from whom he is estranged, knows our address and would be able to have an appraisal conducted to find its value, and then enter that amount into the total of the amount to be divided.
6. In the relatives disclosed about, I understand his mother, sister, and sister's daughter would get something. What about his 1/2 brother and his 1/2 brother's two daughters? Would they be included?
7. I'm unclear about the rightful division. If, for instance, we had a joint account, I would assume 50% would be considered "mine" and 50% considered "his" and that then his 50% would be further divided, i.e. I would get 50% of "his" portion (or 25% of the total portion) and that that remaining 50% of "his" portion would be what is given to his relatives. It may be easier to use an example.

Let's say that he has 100 TL in the bank. To make it easy. :-)

50 TL is considered "his"
50 TL is considered "mine". I keep that outright.
of the 50 TL that is considered his, I would get 50% of that. So I would get another 25TL.
His relations would split the remaining 25 TL.

Is that right? Or would it be

50 TL would go to me.
50 TL would be split among his relations.

This doesn't seem fair, as obviously 50% of whatever would be mine and 50% would be his. And so in that case, it's as if I just keep my own portion and essentially lose all of his portion . . . (I understand that he can stipulate that he wants to give me 25% more, for a 75% share, so I'm not asking about that part)

Thank you in advance for helping me. I would actually gladly pay 1/2 of my mother in law's elder care and continue to take her on vacations and help her, and also leave something to his 1/2 brother's daughters, but I am absoutely loathe to leave anything but a marginal sum to his horrid sister. I am hoping we can find a solution. If not, we may have to re-think moving to Turkey.