The importance of a Turkish will

The general rule in Turkish inheritance is that the children together with the surviving spouse automatically are the heirs of the testator. Therefrom it is unnecessarily to draft a will that concerns a property in Turkey, as long the heirs are the children and the surviving spouse.
This is what we call the normal family set up according the inheritance.

When there is no case of a normal family set up it is wise to draft a will.
Situations where it is wise to draft a will could be when:

• the testator has no children
• the testator is unmarried, but lives together with a partner, or when the testator has a registered partnership.
• the testator wants to disinherit the heirs.

This time I don’t want to talk about how to draft a will or how the probate division would look like, I would like to talk about the importance of having a Turkish will in contrast to a will made in your own home country.

My experience shows me that the Turkish court earlier grants execution to a Turkish will then to a will drafted in a foreigner country.
To be clear: a will drafted in a foreigner country has the same value as a Turkish will. The difference lies in the manner in which effect is given to the content of the will. You already understand that this has consequences for the expenses, and the involved time of the inheritance settlement.

Procedure Turkish will
During a hearing all involved parties will be invited and the contents of the Turkish will, is read by the judge. Parties who are not present during the hearing will get a sworn translated  will by mail in person. The objection period against the contents of the will is 1 month.
In case there are no objections during this period is the will between the involved parties in law, regardless of whether the legitimate portions are respected or not.

Procedure foreign will
A foreign will must be provided with an apostil stamp and a sworn translation of the will before an application van be filed to the court. Because the will is already opened and read abroad there is no need that the Turkish court has to do this again. The court must ascertain whether the will is complied with in accordance the wishes of the deceased. Here it is relevant to prove and to convince the judge that the will has been carried out according to the law in their own country.

In case you don’t have a normal family set up(husband-wife-children) I would strongly recommend you to get advice about your options with an unexpected death incident, or to be sure to draw up a will in Turkey.

Sales with Installment Payments

Everyone is familiar with buying luxury goods on credit. You can buy a car or a washing machine where you get the opportunity to pay it in installments. Even goods such as jewelry and carpets you can buy on credit. You speak a term plans and gets the carpet or jewel right away. This is called in Turkish “Taksitli Satis sozlesmesi” and is described in detail in the consumer protection law.

But recently, the legislature has created a different kind of sales model. The most important difference with this sale on credit is that you only get the goods delivered if all the installments have been paid off. This model is called the "ön ödemeli Satis' mentioned agreement and finds its basis in the contract law.

The reason I write this is that I'm investigating the statutory basis of sales under installment, based on multiple complaints mails of mostly elderly tourists. The typical complaint of tourists about a too expensive purchase, which has been done on a whim or under pushy sales practices, has been around a while. Though a much too expensive purchase in itself is no reason to cancel the purchase, but the Consumer Protection Law provides a number of legal options to terminate the purchase contract.

Consumer Protection Law offers the possibility to terminate the contract, if the (economic) qualities of the purchased do not meet the promises from the seller. For example, the carpet that is sold is not a Turkish carpet but a Chinese or gemstone in the ring does not meet the provided certificate. The precondition is that within 30 days of purchase, the buyer must request his will to undo the purchase in writing to the seller.
In such case, it is then to recover the deposit that has been done.

However, this is not the case with the new sales model. With the new sales model, the seller is not obliged to deliver the purchased to the buyer, until the full purchase price has been paid. The purchasing tourist can only undo the sale if the purchased good is delivered to him. But this means that he first has to pay the full purchase amount before he can undertake his undo actions towards the seller. And as you would agree with me; as long as you do not possess the purchased goods you are not able to check (or rather not prove) whether there is a lack of the purchased goods.

In short: Make sure you get the goods delivered immediately when you make a purchase in installments.

Scammed through a Proxy

In my practice I see many cases of swindle in many various types. People can easily wander during the process of buying a property or can get scammed through deception or misguidance. And over and over again I keep wondering what the main cause of this kind of swindle is. Of course it is always about the money, but money is not the cause. It is the reason why people get scammed. My question is about the cause of scams singly. I think the answer is very simple: It is our built trust in our fellow human.

The story I am going to tell you now has affected me and I am sure you are not indifferent.

This lady has bought together with her husband a nice apartment in Alanya from a construction builder. In this period she met a sworn translator whose services they needed at the Tapu Office. He helped them very good and they stayed in touch. At the moment that the couple had divorced, the property in Turkey was assigned to the lady. Half of the house was on name of her ex husband and had fully come to her name. Again she used the services of the same sworn translator and also this time it went smoothly. The lady got the Tapu completely on her name. She was happy.

After a couple of years, she thought it would be a good idea to transfer the Tapu to her children, in case something would happen to her. Till now she always used the services of the same sworn translator, who also became a friend during the past years. Someone she trusted completely and it was clear that also this time she would ask him to take the job. On his request she gave him a notarized power of attorney; she signed a couple of documents and gave him the needed documents from the children.

After 6 months she was told by the sworn translator that her property had been sold to somebody else. At first she thought he was making a joke, but when she found out that he was very serious she went looking for a lawyer to look into her case and to claim her tapu. After 2 years her lawyer told her that it is a lost cause. And that is how I met this lady when she visited me in my practice for a second opinion.

Now the question arises whether this lady can claim her property back or not. The answer on this question depends on the evidence. Can she prove that this man, who she trusted completely, has scammed her? And what about the rights from the people who bought her property?

She gave this man a notarized power of attorney to sell and transfer the property on her behalf. She never thought about the fact that this power of attorney was drafted too broadly. In this case my advice to her would have been to give a power of attorney that only gives the right to sell and transfer the property on behalf of her children. THAT was her intention. This way the sworn translator would never be able to sell the property to a third party. The third party could never have relied on the power of attorney that he held. And because of this it is that the court has deemed the case not proven.

The sad thing about this case is that during the court case she found out that the sworn translator had pilfered her signature on a blank paper and later wrote on this paper himself that she had  received the complete amount of money from the sale. This lady not only lost her holiday home, she also lost her rights to reclaim the money from the sworn translator. And with this a dream and trust in a fellow human turned into a nightmare.

  

In Turkey it is easy to become a sworn translator. Don’t get me wrong, it is a respectable profession. As long the translator does what he should do, The Translation, I have no qualms.

But most of the time they also do consulting work or worse attorney work. There is no guild or order that effectively controls their actions or calls them to order. Be careful with the trust that you give away.