Turkey gains World Bank funding to upgrade TAPU system

Turkey Partners with World Bank for Modernization of Land Management Systems

WASHINGTON, May 1, 2008 – The World Bank today approved a loan equivalent to US$203 million to the Government of Turkey for the Land Registry and Cadastre Modernization Project. The Project will improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the land registry and cadastre services.

"The Project constitutes a next generation of Bank operations in the area of land management and cadastre, where the country already has a well functioning property rights regime, but is striving to take the land registry and cadastre data use to the next level by spreading its benefits to people, businesses and multiple sectors, and facilitating better access to real estate information through the e-government platform,” said Wael Zakout, Sector Manager and Task Team Leader for the Project. “This project will also help improve customer service by reducing the time taken to register a property transaction to a few hours, and develop property appraisal function in line with international standards.”

The project will (i) renovate and update cadastre maps to support digital cadastre and land registry information; (ii) make the digital land registry and cadastre information available to public and private entities (iii) improve customer services in land registry and cadastre offices; (iv) improve human resources in the Turkish Land Registry and Cadastre Agency (TKGM); and (v) develop policies and capacity to introduce best international practices in property valuation in Turkey.

While the Turkish Cadastre and Registration system is considered one of the most effective in the region and registration of property transactions is done within one day in many offices, there are still many shortcomings to be addressed to ensure that the system modernizes to reach the same service level as in the European countries. Many of the Cadastre and Land Registry offices rely on manual systems, with old documents, some of them dating back to the Ottoman times. In addition, the TAKBIS system (Turkey’s computerized Cadastre and Land Registry Software) runs in only 140 out of the 1000 offices.

The most challenging aspect is that cadastral maps continue to be in a paper format, vary in accuracy and consistency, and are not linked to the national network. This makes it difficult to support E-government applications as cadastre maps serve as a base mapping for many government applications. Furthermore, in many localities maps are out of date and do not correspond with the ground locations and areas, differing sometimes by up to 10 meters.

The project will be funded by an IBRD flexible variable spread loan. It will have a maturity of 23.5 years including a 5 year grace period.

Source: www.worldbank.org

Credit: www.turkeycentral.com

Military check fees when buying property in Turkey - Why, and Who Pays?

We at Dizayn Homes thought it would be useful to talk about Title Deeds Checks, an important part of the procedure for all foreigners buying property in Turkey.

Famously, it can take many months, and for some people even years, to hear that their TAPU (title deeds) are ready to be transferred into their name after buying their Turkish property. What does this mean and why does it take so long?

Foreigners are allowed to buy and own property in Turkey as individuals, as long as their home country allows Turks to do the same and as long as the property they're buying meets certain conditions:
1. Must not be on militarily sensitive land
2. Must not exceed 2.5 hectares in total

All purchases of property by foreigners are screened for these things, in a process that is often referred to as the "military check" or title deeds check. When foreigners were first allowed to buy property as individuals in Turkey (instead of having to establish a business), the information needed to clear the purchase was held in several different locations including the regional army offices so each application had to physically go from office to office before it was allowed to go ahead! So even buying a property with a complete set of paperwork (quite an unusual thing in itself) could take many months.

Other things also slowed down the process - the demand for title deeds checks wasn't really anticipated so a backlog quickly grew as new requests came in quicker than the old ones went out; and the paperwork required before a new building can be given tapus for its individual habitations is quite complex, and you need to have a tapu to check before the process cab even start.

Now the process is a bit more streamlined - all the information needed to carry out the check is now kept at the Land Registry. But purchases are still coming in more quickly than they are being done, and the backlog still needs to be cleared, so the checks are still quite slow.

As there aren't the same restrictions on Turkish citizens when they buy property, their purchases don't need to be checked, and their purchases don't incur the cost of the admin. So purchases by foreigners are more expensive than purchases by Turks and the local municipalities often choose to charge for carrying out these checks. There is no law saying who should cover the cost, and the cost can vary from municipality to municipality. So one buyer might pay a few hundred pounds for their title deeds checks, while another's might be paid by the developer, and a third purchase might not incur any charge at all.

So essentially, when buying property in Turkey as a foreigner, you may or may not have to pay for your title deeds check; but if you do, get a receipt (as you should for all payments you make when buying your property). It'll give you peace of mind and something concrete to turn to should you ever need it.

Many thanks to Today's Zaman for being the reference point for this article.

Buying Property in Turkey - By Popular Demand: New Turkish Dictionary Feature!

What's a tapu? How do I ask for a lawyer in Turkey? Does satilik mean that property is for sale, or for rent? What does an emlak do? What's the word for Property Tax?

Buying property in Turkey can be done without any knowledge of the language at all. You can use a good English-speaking agent and a government-authorised translator for the legal bits, and complete the whole transaction without even a word of Turkish.

But sometimes you might want to be able to look things up for yourself, or check key words on your contract (which must be in Turkish to be legally binding in Turkey). So we've added an excellent translation tool to our newsletter, powered by Turkish Dictionary. It's on the right-hand side of this page and very easy to use - just type in the word you want to translate either in English or Turkish and the translation will open in a new browser window.

And of course if you have any questions about buying property in Turkey that can't be explained by the dictionary, we are happy to help! Just drop us an email at info@dizaynhomes.com.