Please be careful !!!

Under Turkish Law:

1 - An agreement regarding transfer of title of an immovable property (i.e. land, flat, house) which has not been signed by the parties or by their attorneys of fact at the land registry does not give any right to claim title on the immovable property even if it contains explicit undertaking of the seller and/or owner towards the buyer for the transfer of title against buyer's fulfilment of certain obligations and payment of the agreed consideration.

2- Such agreement, not signed at the land registry can not be interpreted as seller's covenant to transfer title of the property in the future, either. Such promise shall be valid only if it was declared at the notary public.

3- In other words, you would not be entitled to obtain the title by relying on these documents at the court, irrespective of whether those were prepared in English, in Turkish or both, which is only a matter of choice. Validity of an agreement is not subject to being drawn up in Turkish language.

4- Even if some liquidated damages/penalty fees are stipulated in the contract, applicable in case of non performance or delay by seller/owner, these conditions would not be enforceable, either, within the light of the explanations in paragraphs 1 and 2 above. The only remedy you may have in this case, where the seller fails to transfer the title is, to sue the seller under unjust enrichment provisions of the Turkish Code of Obligations, and claim for the payments you made to the Seller.

5- There is one exception to the above. If the buyer fulfilled his obligations towards the seller who did not claim invalidity of the contract but then refuses to transfer the title, the buyer may be granted with title by the court on the grounds that claiming invalidity of such sale-purchase agreement at that stage would be against bona fide. However, this is only an arguement that we, lawyers can use if our client has no other remedy, and of course, the most important of all, if the property had not been sold by the owner to a bona fide third party in due course. Therefore, I can not advise you to proceed further by relying on this exception, and yet there is no guarantee that the seller is the owner of the property. I have come accross with many cases involving Bodrum area, where contractors/sellers do or do not own the property. There are different systems under Turkish Law where the contractor/developer may agree with owner of a land, who refuse to transfer title of the property to the contractor at the beginning, but the contractor trying to sell the property in advance, although it is not registered to his name. There are systems that the land owner may transfer the title of the contractor's portion in advance but in order to secure completion of the construction, parties create lien on the transferred portion of the land. The issue is rather complex, which may be discussed in the future.

Consequently, I would like to advise you to ask the seller to provide you with a copy of the title deed. I assume you may get several answers from the Seller, which can be evaluated here, if you forward them to this site.

Lastly, on a personal note, I would like to draw all of the visitors' attention to the fact that, one of the members once said to a visitor "believe me, 200 pounds for an advise on the telephone is too much." I strongly protest that comment. Who can ever judge the fee raised by the lawyer, which was not agreed by the client !!! It is up to the client whether to accept the fee or refuse to work with that lawyer. Once accepted, it is of course possible to ask for intervention of the bar, or even the court, according to the circumstances. As in other jurisdictions, the fee is not merely based on the amount of time to be spent by the lawyer, but also the importance of the matter, the value involved, the experience of the lawyer, etc. If one dare to ask how much I would charge for such an advice I gave here, if I am required to pass it on the telephone professionally, my answer would differ according to the criteria I mentioned above. It may be even thousands of pounds. Therefore, I am deeply disturbed by the critism referred to my colleauge in his absence. My last comments would be, rather than critising the fees raised by other lawyers, try to give legal opinion here, and where relevant, challenge other opinions and solve problems.

At least be happy that you have such a site where you can obtain/give advise, free of charge.

Best regards

I.C.H