Turkey: Property Inheritence Law to Protect Rights of Foreigners

A pilot project in Antalya aims to eliminate any possible confiscation of properties that belong to foreign people who die while in Turkey

Experts say there are approximately 100,000 properties owned by foreign people in Turkey; 20 percent are in Alanya. Hürriyet photoA new project in Antalya aims to prevent the heirs of foreigners who own real estate in Turkey from being divested of their rightful inheritance in the event of death for such landowners.

Foreigners and their beneficiaries are occasionally deceived and cheated out of their inheritance as unclaimed property can be appropriated by some individuals through fraudulent means, said Antalya Provincial Treasurer Hidayet Mat, adding that inherited property was subject to the deceased persons’ national law.

Earlier this year, real estate owned by two British nationals who died in Antalya’s district of Alanya was temporarily taken over by the state when no heir could be located.

Tracking down inheritors

The event prompted moves to better track down the possible inheritors of deceased property owners, according to officials. Now, when a foreign resident passes away in the district, the Alanya Birth Registration Office relays that information to the Alanya Fiscal Directorate and the Antalya Revenue Office. The fiscal directorate first determines whether the deceased person had any real estate registered in his or her name; if such property is found, a written statement is then sent to the relevant embassy regarding the matter. In such a case, the property is only temporarily taken over by the state if an heir cannot be located by the embassy, daily Radikal recently reported.

Alanya was selected as the pilot region for the project, and the two British nationals whose properties were left over to the state were eventually turned over to their heirs.

“Once we started conducting searches, the real estate we made inquiries about with the embassies turned out to have a whole bunch of inheritors,” Mat said.

Kerim Balıktay, head of the Alanya Real Estate Agents’ Association, also said he found the new regulation positive.

“The Antalya Revenue Office started this regulation as a precaution against any possible confiscation of properties that belong to foreign people,” Balıktay said. “These things do not happen so often but the regulation is definitely preventing it from happening.”
Balıktay said foreigners owned approximately 100,000 properties in the country – 20 percent of which are in Alanya.

August 9, 2011
SOURCE: TURKISH DAILY NEWS