I am wondering if you can please help me. I am an American married in 2000 to a Turkish man. We live in Turkey and I am also a Turkish citizen now. Stupid me - I assumed when I married that Turkey had inheritance laws like in the U.S. where all assests would be left to the surviving spouse. Today I was looking at a Turkish law website discussing inheritance law and I was shocked to see that if my husband dies, I would only inherit 50% - the other half would go to his family (we aren't planning on having any children). Is this right?!! Can he write a will leaving everything to me? Of course, I was not thinking of ever turning my back on my husband's family and would always help them out financially in the future if they needed help, but 50% seems excessive. The website seemed to say that he couldn't make such a will. My husband has a small travel company and it is enough to give us a simple life here in Turkey where things are relatively cheap, but I am horrified to think of what would happen if he died and I was only to receive 50% of our savings and the apartment - it would not go very far at all in America with its very high cost of living. And since we plan on living here in Turkey a long time, I would have no career to go back to if my husband died and very few marketable skills immediately if I had to go home and it would be a disaster if I was old. Oh, please help me, this seems so unfair and I am scared now. My husband said that we would go to a lawyer and that the lawyer would be able to make a will that would leave me everything or at least a bigger part, but based on what I read in the law website, I think my husband is wrong about that. We will go to a lawyer about this, but my husband will have no time in the near future to do so because of his business and I am so worried in the meantime. What if we put all our money in joint bank accounts and put my name on the property title too? Could our assests still be divided with the family? I don't want to end up old, lonely and on welfare in the U.S.

Thank you so much for your reply. You have a great website and I really appreciate your time.